


Not All Ravens Are Unkind

by LittleRedCosette



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Captivity, Depression, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Getting Together, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Military Backstory, Moral Ambiguity, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recovery, Rescue Missions, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 23:38:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 69,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRedCosette/pseuds/LittleRedCosette
Summary: Eames hasn’t spent much of his life thinking about what Arthur gets up to in his free time, but he sincerely doubts it usually involves getting strung up from ceilings by his wrists and electrocuted.For an incredibly brief but entirely legitimate two seconds, Eames considers burning the images and getting back in bed. However, it would be rude not to do something about Arthur’s predicament and at the end of the day, Eames’ mother never let rudeness slide.Or guns at the table, but that’s another matter entirely.**Eames is thirty-six years old.He has been a dream forger for eleven years.He has four permanent addresses and lives nowhere.**A story about wasting time and making up for it again.**





	Not All Ravens Are Unkind

**Author's Note:**

> Friends,
> 
> Honestly, I have no idea where this story came from. One minute I was happily barely finding time to crack on with my unfinished pieces, the next this story just wouldn’t leave my brain. Basically, if you're following my other fics, this is the reason I've been so horribly slow to get back to them.
> 
> I feel duty bound to you inform you all that I’ve kind of taken my written style/format to a new and shameless extreme with this fic, and I am completely aware of that. It’s both completely linear and absolutely non-linear. I hope you like it? 
> 
> Also, I don't know why I'm so obsessed with Arthur and Eames playing board games but I just love it so much. I'm pretty sure I've used it in every story/'verse I've written of them. And I will shamelessly continue to do so.
> 
> I really thought I was writing a rescue fic, but to be honest it turned into a bit of a soul search for Eames. I didn’t even know I had this much to say about him before now. There’s a lot of stuff about England in here, and I kind of hate on it a bit? But to be clear, I myself am English, and while I’m not very proud of my country right now, I don’t have the intrinsic dislike for it that’s kind of displayed here.
> 
> There are also a lot of **unreliable thought processes** in this fic. Eames in particular goes to dark places, and should be taken with a pinch/bucket of salt.
> 
>  _Please check the tags._ There is a lot of aftermath to trauma in this fic, some immediate, some long-term. I didn’t tag _‘Loss of a Child’_ because that would be seriously misleading, but there are themes of it here, too, multiple times.
> 
> **Little facts for anybody’s interest (OK, possibly for only my interest) the collective nouns for a lot of creatures in English are ridiculous. The five referred to in this story are:**
> 
> **A murder of crows; A parliament of owls; A charm of finches; A clattering of jackdaws; An unkindness of ravens.**
> 
> How brilliant are they? My favourite is probably a coalition of cheetahs but alas, it didn’t fit with the bird theme.
> 
>  **Extra little note:** Blighty is informal slang for Britain used by soldiers in both world wars. It has British colonialism origins so isn’t a very well-loved word now, my use of it here isn’t meant to offend anyone, so I hope it doesn’t.
> 
>  **Another extra little note:** in the tags it says homophobia/c language, this does include references to institutional homophobia, specifically the military, which can be a touchy subject so please keep in mind. Similarly, the rape/non-con elements are very referential only (not explicit content) but in no way hidden.
> 
> I would love to know what you think.
> 
> Yours always,
> 
> LRCx

|*|

**BLIGHTY | crows that do not kill**

|*|

**coda | first | arthur**

It was winter, nip tuck sky of salty clouds. Post-holiday blues settling in the shop fronts in rows of argyle sweaters and limp bobble hats the colours of long-gone leaves.

The job, complete. Then, incomplete.

Arthur stood in the airport in a snow-damp three-piece suit, his dark hair slicked back off his face and his tie pinching just too tightly at his throat. He was staring up at the departure boards flickering with blinking, ever-changing numbers, like the flurries of sleet threatening the planes on the runways.

From inside his jacket pocket, his phone buzzed; once, twice, phone call.

By the time he pulled it out, though, it had stopped.

The number was blocked of course. He stared down at his phone and was momentarily submerged in a wave of such prickly, hackle-raised paranoia that he turned right around where he stood, half-expecting to see someone waiting for him at the doors.

Arthur was not a man who ignored his instincts.

The air, close to his skin like breath and the eardrum rattle of the crowded terminal.

In his hand, the phone lit up again. He thumbed the call, phone cold against his ear, listening.

 _“Arthur?”_   It was Shiro, the chemist, his voice the flutter of damp leather. _“Thought you might have dropped contact already.”_

“Not yet,” Arthur retorted sharply. “What do you want?”

 _“Mr Goddard just made a phone call from a secure line,”_   the chemist said, perturbed in such a peculiar manner that Arthur felt it in his fingertips.

Goddard, their tight-fisted client, was a shrewd man in his seventies with a fortune to spend and no legitimate children to bequeath it to. He was also a man of few scruples and dangerously vast resources.

Arthur knew better than to insult Shiro by asking how he knew what Goddard was up to, or what evidence he had to arouse suspicion. The last time he’d so much as raised an eyebrow incorrectly at Shiro, he’d found himself paying the most extortionate fees for somnacin he’d ever heard of.

“Government or contract?” is all he asked, and Shiro made a hissing cat sound.

_“More than likely government, he’s got friends in the Exec. I’ve got two in a car behind me – possibly another vehicle behind that.”_

Arthur kept his eyes on the departure boards, listening to the bustling chatter of the airport with his heart quiet in his throat. Chances were slim Goddard had the power to ground him at such short notice; he could get the next flight out to the States and he’d be safe in a matter of hours.

Before he could decide, Shiro spoke again.

_“Arthur, you’re the only one I could get hold of. You should leave now before Goddard gets Marshall and Eames, because neither of them will go down alone. I hope I see you alive again.”_

Then he dropped the call.

Arthur stuffed the phone back into his pocket, his heart throbbing steel in his chest. High up ahead of him, his flight number blinked another delay of twenty minutes.

Shiro was probably right, of course. Marshall was a slippery fucker and there was little chance he’d go down with his own ship, even if he was a decent enough extractor. If Goddard got hold of him, he’d drop his team’s loyalty in a heartbeat.

Arthur didn’t really care much about Marshall either way, though. What troubled Arthur, however slightly, was Eames.

Eames was less likely to be caught, that was for sure. He had a knack for collecting the worst kinds of allies and Arthur had no doubt he could wriggle out of capture better than almost anyone else.

Only, he’d taken a nasty hit on the job, and there was every chance Eames would be stupid enough to stay an extra night in the city to sleep off the hangover of getting strangled underwater on a second level dream. He was probably asleep right now, the _idiot,_ and Arthur had seen the nauseated look on his face when he woke up.

It wasn’t Arthur’s _fault,_ per say. There was a risk with every job; he knew that, Eames knew that. Still, it couldn’t have been a pleasant way to go, especially when there was every chance the kill could have dropped him down instead of kicking him up.

Arthur sighed. There was only one thing for it, wasn’t there?

With a final glance at the departure boards, Arthur picked up his bag, turned on his heel and walked back out of the airport.

Sleet flurried in his hair, chilling his bones and the tightly knit skin across the back of his neck, and he hailed a cab after six unpleasant minutes of quick-lip whistling.

Sitting in the back of the taxi as it crawled ever closer to the hotel, Arthur rested his forehead against the cold window and sighed.

“You better not be sleeping, you shithead,” he muttered under his breath.

|*|

**mombasa, kenya**

There are only three poker joints in all of Mombasa that still let Eames through their doors and tonight, it looks very much like that number’s about to get knocked down to two.

He’s at Sayid’s. A cramped, thin corridor throng of tolerably criminal breeds, much like Eames himself.

It’s a one entrance, one exit kind of place, and in all the years he’s been coming here Eames has only ever seen someone have the poor sense to kick up a fuss once.

Sayid, the dour faced owner, has been watching him more closely the past few games, even though Eames has been on his very best behaviour. He’s won big once today, lost with increasing immoderation and spent almost all of his pocket money at the bar.

Sayid’s is decent enough. Just above ground to let the fresh air in, hardly a skyline highlight of Mombasa.

It’s the only place where the women aren’t just there to keep bellies full and dicks wet, too, which Eames appreciates, because there’s nothing more distracting than a mouth around his cock when he’s trying to bluff his way through a deuce.

Sayid himself is a large man, with three fingers of his left hand missing and a serrated burn scar on his face that’s ironed half of his left ear to his head. He stares at his patrons with beady, dubious eyes; has a fickle sense of good business and a weakness for weaponry.

And now, he’s staring at Eames with rough savannah distrust.

Eames is a lonely monarch away from a royal flush. He’s a fistful of cash down and has been for the past hour, slouched at a small square table tucked into the corner.

Opposite him sits one of the Helmusch twins, wearing a salmon pink shirt and curling his tongue inside his mouth, which means he has at _least_ a straight flush already. There’s a thin line of sweat across his dark brow.

To his right sits Sayid’s wife, Maja, the only woman Sayid has a good word to say about. She’s a hell of a lot meaner than her husband, but it’s reputationally tempered by the fact that she stitches up knife wounds better than most medical professionals Eames has ever met. It helps that she’s also very good at not asking questions.

To his left sits the Snow Leopard.

She’s got a new tattoo, a knot of snakes badly scarring on her inner forearm and she’s wearing that godforsaken marine cap again. The one that he’s not entirely convinced she didn’t pluck right off a dead soldier’s head.

She’s also got her leg hooked around Eames’ calf like she thinks it will distract him in any way, her skin coarse against his, her crystal eyes on her cards.

It _is_ quite distracting, actually.

Samantha Chamberlain is her probably-real name.

Born and raised in Mafikeng, South Africa, she swings by Mombasa every month with a fresh batch of poppy crops and snowstorms, at least two cases of somnacin and a lolling, easy confidence that Eames has only ever met in bankers and prostitutes.

From what Eames has gathered over the years, she’s used to being the only woman at a man’s table, the only white girl in the room. Everyone in Kenya knows Sayid would happily have her shot out the back behind the bins if he thought he could get away with it.

Unfortunately for Sayid, everyone in Kenya also knows his wife is awfully fond of the Snow Leopard. And really, it doesn’t hurt that she attracts a very particular, spend-heavy crowd, either.

She, too, has been looking at Eames a lot today.

He doubts very much it’s for the same reasons as Sayid.

“Cheer up, Blighty,” she says, just as the flat top of her foot tucks into the bend of his knee. She laughs at the withering look he throws her. “You’ve still got plenty you can offer up as treasure when you run out of hard cash.”

So, it’s one of _those_ visits.

Samantha Chamberlain has been trying to buy Eames’ PASIV off him ever since she found out he had one.

One of his less impressive moments, really. He knew better than to round off several exhausting hours of downright disgracefully good sex with an extra hit of cocaine, but there it had been, just sitting on the bedside table where she’d left it.

Only, the existential meltdown that had ensued, including two attempts to drown himself in the shower and one attempt to push Sam out of his bedroom window, had not been worth it.

Eames isn’t entirely sure what it was he said in his mania that tipped her off. All he knows is that by the time he came to, tangled in bed covers in the bath the following day with a mouth of bedrock and his head bleating, it was to find Samantha Chamberlain turning his flat upside down looking for his PASIV.

Now, as she looks at him with those hungry, hollow eyes of hers, he rolls his own.

“Not this time, little leopard,” he says, same as always. “Fold.”

He drops his cards face down and submits to the cross look Maja gives him by pushing a third of his chips in her direction.

Untangling his leg from Sam’s, he bows out of the game and sidles, pockets full of plastic, through the heaving crowd towards the bar.

He feels rather than sees Sayid’s gaze follow him across the room.

It’s late in the day. The tang of cigarettes is overwhelming and the bar top is sticky with rum.

Ordering two whiskies, he slides one to his left and takes a sip of the other just in time for Sayid to lean a little shy of too close beside him. His accusatory eyes, narrow and dark.

He nods a cheers at Eames and sips his drink through pursed lips.

“What can I do for you, Sayid?” Eames asks pleasantly, keeping his pose loose and sufficiently non-threatening.

Sayid turns, resting an elbow on the bar and surveying the room at large.

Eames follows his gaze.

His seat’s already been taken by a new player. There’s a restlessness to the crowd today. An expectant hum amidst the murmuring, like blood in the water, convergence of toothless sharks.

“Eames,” he says in a voice used to being listened to. “A man was in here yesterday, looking for you.”

Eames raises his eyebrows in a tilted question mark.

“A lot of men are looking for me,” he says, slightly teasing. Just enough to make Sayid glower.

“American,” he continues. “One of _hers.”_

There’s only one _her_ whose mention merits quite such an injection of loathing from Sayid.

Eames glances at Sam Chamberlain. Snow Leopard, Snow White. The shaved side of her head and the glittering loops pierced up her ear in ladder rungs.

 _One of Samantha’s_ only ever means a drug addict or a contract killer.

Eames has little cause to be hunted down by a drug addict, being neither a supplier nor a pusher. Which means that for some reason, yesterday, a hitman was skulking around Mombasa looking for him.

He takes another sip of whisky, the single ice cube thunking in the glass, and stares at the rough tanned side of Samantha’s leering face.

On the one hand, a hitman so brazenly asking for him means he’s probably not trying to kill him. This is, in Eames’ experience, a very good thing.

On the other hand, a hitman boldly making Eames aware he knows his name is very possibly a base threat, a posturing of positions.

Eames licks his lips, salt sweat malt. He returns his attention to Sayid’s shrewd expression.

“Well, did he leave a forwarding address?” he asks.

Sayid clicks at the bartender, tugging a double fingered beckoning gesture at him. The bartender nods dutifully, shifts some bottles around on the top shelf behind the bar and withdraws an A4 manila envelope, folded once horizontally.

Sayid takes it and hands it to Eames.

“He left this.”

It’s still sealed at both ends, no sign of tampering. Eames takes it.

“Very good of you not to snoop,” he says with pointed disbelief.

Sayid laughs, a false _ha_ like a coyote, only deeper.

He slaps a crushing hand onto Eames’ shoulder, the hand with only a thumb and forefinger, and three scarred stumps. They dig deep into the tender joint of Eames’ shoulder socket as Sayid leans even closer, tobacco breath and grim displeasure in his face.

 _“She_ stays because she brings customers,” he says, head jerking in Samantha Chamberlain’s vague direction. “But her friends, they bring only corpses. I won’t have you bringing me your problems. Do we understand one another?”

Eames would like very much to point out he hasn’t actually brought Sayid anything at all.

There’s no room for it in Sayid’s expression, though. Only hard, defensive refusal.

Eames nods once, solemn promise. Tucks the envelope into the back of his trousers, covers it with his jacket and stalks directly over to his old table.

Maja is laughing loudly, smacking the heads of the men on either side of her before hauling the chips she’s ostensibly just won into the lap of her bright floral dress. The men are squawking indignantly while Samantha toasts Maja’s fortune with her mostly full drink.

Just as she goes to take a sip, Eames reaches her.

She’s a scrawny thing, really, at least in comparison to Eames. He can fit his hand solidly around the back of her neck in a firm enough grip to haul her up and away from her chair.

Samantha yelps, and her drink splashes all over them both as she jabs its open rim at Eames in self-defence, limbs flailing in all directions. Eames holds tight anyway, sugar and rum stinging his eyes as he spits a mouthful of it to the floor with a splatter.

“Excuse us, gents. My dear Maja. The Leopard and I need to have a chat.”

“We do _not!”_ Samantha gripes wildly, one hand reaching up to tug Eames’ hair even as he hooks his arms around her waist and lifts her off the ground.

The men jeer none too innocently at her writhing limbs, and even Maja shoots him a dirty grin as he hauls her sideways in a swoop.

“Ow, fuck, calm your shit,” he growls, not letting go even as she gets an unexpectedly strong elbow right in his ear.

The customers part willing as the Red Sea for Eames and his captive, and a large number of them clap and roar their approval when she gets her hands in his hair again and brings her head backwards into his face in a dizzying blow.

With a gasping _oof_ of surprise Eames drops her, clutching his nose as she turns, staggering to punch him once, uppercut in the stomach. Then she stalks outside yelling _“Come on then!”_ over her shoulder, sauntering with that banshee cackle.

Chuckling bashful, nose throbbing and sticky with cola and rum that’s trickling down his shirt, Eames ducks through the billowing, bellowing crowd and follows her out into the street below.

|*|

Eames chose his name was when he was twenty-three years old.

It fit better than the ones that came before.

Fit better than the ones that came after, too.

|*|

**mombasa, kenya**

It’s still busy outside beyond the snicket entrance, still sand muggy hot. Daylight hasn’t dipped yet and Mombasa is bathing in an orange glow.

Samantha is waiting for him halfway down the alley, wiping her drink off her face and chest. Her expression as he approaches is downright thunderous.

“You’ve got a hard head, girl,” Eames says, still wriggling the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger.

Her mouth twitches as she sneers at him.

“I have to say, I expected better of you, Blighty.”

Eames reaches over to wipe a trickle from the side of her face that she’s missed. She allows it, although she definitely considers biting his hand by the way she glares at it.

“Why is an American gun looking for me, pet?” he asks.

Her glower transforms, barking laughter.

Forget a snow leopard, she’s a demon jackal.

“Why would I know about that?” she asks with a challenging grin.

Eames snorts impatiently, glancing lengthways down the deserted alley before shoving her up against the wall with a forearm across her chest. Unfortunately, she looks a bit too comfortable with him pressing into her so close, her legs splaying just too wide about his thighs and her hands playing teapot on her hips.

“There isn’t a gun hand this side of the Okavango that you don’t know about,” he mutters, half a guttural growl.

Samantha squirms coyly under him.

“Oh Blighty, flattery will get you everywhere.”

“Stop playing, Sam,” he says, trying his best to ignore that all too pleasant friction she’s visibly enjoying.

Her leering grows stale at that, her eyes alight with a strange, dark playfulness. Knives in cotton. She cocks her head.

“I don’t know his name,” she murmurs. “He arrived in Mombasa two days ago. He’s staying at the coast and he drinks peach iced tea. He’s booked under the name Oldham.”

Eames lets go of her. Steps back out from between her legs and she straightens up, brushing down her cargo pants and wringing out her soaked black shirt.

The marine cap sits jaunty high on her head. When she catches him looking at it, she tips it in a mocking salute.

“Want me to get you one?” she offers merrily.

“I’ve got my own, thanks,” Eames retorts with a blank look.

Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he grimaces at the sugar tack feel it leaves over his fingers.

“You need a shower,” she says, swiping a thumb under his eye and sucking the residue off loudly.

“Guess I’ll head home, then,” he retorts, making for the south end of the alley, which leads out to the crowded street.

“My water pressure’s better,” Samantha calls out after him, all tease and test.

Eames stops, looking back at her. She’s got her hands in her pockets and she’s wearing a knowing, cat-smug look.

She’s right, he thinks to himself. Her water pressure _is_ surprisingly excellent. And there’s a hitman looking for him, so maybe he’s going to die tomorrow.

Samantha appears to be thinking the same thing as she smirks, eyebrows raised high in her thin, angular face.

“You do me, then I’ll do you?” she asks, tongue pink over the top rim of her teeth like an offer.

Demon Fucking Jackal.

“Yeah, alright,” Eames shrugs, traipsing lazily after her in the other direction as he pulls out a cigarette pack. It’s sodden, too, but the roll ups inside are safely dry, as is the Zippo.

He lights one and Samantha plucks it daintily out of his hands. He lights another with a token effort grumble.

As they approach her flat, a run-down block that’s probably older than the pair of them combined, she brushes the back of her hand against his, smoke clouding out of her smile like a doused dragon.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she says, sounding an awful lot like she means it.

Eames doesn’t respond, other than to cup his palm over the back of her bony neck and squeeze gently, oddly grateful for the lie.

|*|

**interlude | yusuf**

It's late when the text pings through, toaster ready. Or, perhaps it's early.

Either way, the sky is dark and the air is rife with yowling strays and Yusuf is asleep.

Until, that is, he is woken by a loud trill from his phone.

He snaps awake, a jolt of surprise. Fumbling as he squints at the garish screen. A text.

It's from Eames, who knows better than to contact him out of hours. Yusuf tosses the phone onto his bedside cabinet and rolls back into his thin pillows, willing that lost casing of sleep to return.

The night-not-dawn sounds sneak through his bedroom like cockroaches over the wood of his floors. He lies very still, tries to imitate the steady breath of sleep, one arm resting over his eyes.

He thinks, perhaps, he had been having a very good dream, if only he could remember it.

A flare of irritation at Eames sparks in his chest. He _knows_ better, after all.

That, more than anything, is what gives Yusuf pause as he lies in bed, face squashed into his forearm.

Perhaps it's urgent.

Only, why text? If it had been urgent, Eames would have called. Of _course_ he would have called.

Yusuf wriggles under his sheets, rolling away from his silent phone as if to block its very memory from his mind.

The night crawls on, sound and scent. Sleep evades Yusuf, a sly joke.

He belly flops and tummy flips on the mattress, seeking some greater comfort, yet still he doesn’t drift off. Worry for Eames, unwanted, unasked for, is invading his thoughts.

The twat _knows better,_ after all.

He rolls back, glaring vengefully at his silent, mocking phone.

“Stop it,” he says, whether to his phone or his imagination, he’s not entirely sure.

Neither his phone nor his imagination replies.

Scrubbing both hands up and down his face, Yusuf lets out a despairing grunt of frustration. He snatches the phone up, blearily takes in the time - two forty-six in the morning, for goodness sake - and opens the text.

_OLDHAM. COASTAL HOTEL. US GUN. STANDBY RIO 47:46_

Yusuf groans, clucking his tongue and dropping his phone to his chest.

“It’s three in the bloody morning, boyo,” he mutters, before texting back a single word:

_RECEIVED._

This will be his forty-seventh favour for Eames. He supposes he’d best just hope it won’t involve burying another body.

His phone pings again, the sound muffled cavernous into his sternum.

Sighing, he glances at it.

_Thank you._

It’s not a first, per say, but it’s a rarity.

 _Be careful_ he texts back before tossing the phone onto the cabinet.

This time, sleep is merciful. Little more than the flicker of a light switch in his cloudy mind, before the dream returns once more.

|*|

Eames got a tattoo of a poppy on his left shoulder when he was twenty-seven years old.

A lover asked, _For the soldiers?_

And Eames replied, _Not in the slightest._

|*|

**mombasa, kenya**

Eames wakes up the next morning sated and starving in equal measure. Deliciously bruised and feeling maybe like he’s got one more round in him, given enough time.

Samantha’s awake. He can hear the click tap of her fingernails on her laptop as she types, feels the damp warmth of her thigh against his arm where she sits on her pillow.

“Morning Sleepy Beauty,” she says, still typing.

Eames opens his mouth to respond and lets out a long, muscle stretch yawn in every direction instead.

“Oh _ho,_ he’s not twenty-five anymore, ladies and gentlemen!” Samantha crows to the empty room, snickering as Eames rolls over to offer her a glower. “Cheer up, Blighty. There’s coffee in the kitchen.”

Deciding better than to answer, he yawns again and rolls away, off the bed and upright.

Most of her room is taken up by her obscenely large bed, dirty sheets in all directions covering up floorboards, half of which conceal valuables, the other half steel traps that have chopped a few fingers in their time.

Sam’s got a blanket tied superman cape around her throat, laptop on her knees and a severe expression on her face. Mouth bruise swollen and eyes hooded with sleep.

A smirk plays over her lips, though, so Eames swiftly turns on his heel and marches away before she can make anymore unwelcome comments.

Her kitchen’s surprisingly tidy. There are no doors on the cupboards, leaving everything on display, and there’s a cafetière on the side containing all of 10 ccs of coffee, if that.

“You said -” he starts, but stops himself, because he’d have an easier time arguing with the sky.

Sleep bleary and sex weary, he roots around for some coffee grounds and starts making a fresh pot.

On the back of a chair behind him is a thin maroon dressing gown. He throws it on, tying the belt with a scowl a distaste.

Too small in all directions, it’s not even real silk. There’s no chance in hell the Snow Leopard doesn’t make more than enough to afford a decent dressing gown. Or doors for her bloody cupboards.

It’s a Sunday. Early, by the sounds coming through the open windows, and Eames’ only concern for the day is staying alive.

It shouldn’t be too hard. According to Sam, the hitman’s been in Mombasa for nearly three days now and all he’s done is ask around at a bar and leave a mysterious envelope.

Which, come to think of it, Eames had completely forgotten about the second Sam’s knees hit the floorboards. He should probably give it a look.

The coffee, for all its hassle, smells heavenly as it brews. Eames waits to pour the entire contents into two huge mugs, drops most of the piddle of milk from the fridge into one mug and five sugars into the other.

Carrying them back to the bedroom, Eames spies a map of Johannesburg laid out on the tiny coffee table in the cluttered living room. It’s a road map by the looks of it, stuck full of brightly coloured pins.

He peruses it for a moment, tracking the routes along the lines of green dots. The red ones, he thinks, are safe houses, or possibly marks.

“You thinking about going home?” he shouts through the flat to no response.

He turns to the open doorway.

“Sammy?” he says a little louder, making for the bedroom. “Are you th - oh for fuck sake, Samantha.”

She’s sitting in the middle of the bed, legs a perfect V and hair spiked up on her head, hedgehog pretty.

There’s a ripped A4 manila envelope at her hip and in her hands, several A4 sheets folded at the midpoint.

Sam looks up innocently, mouth open and distinctly downturned.

“What’s in Zagreb?” she asks instead of whatever apology Eames knows better than to expect.

Thrown by the question, Eames stalls in the doorway, a mug of hot coffee heavy in each hand, and frowns.

“What?”

Holding up the pages like a teleprompter, she reads aloud:

“Zagreb, Brezovica. Then some coordinates. I haven’t checked yet, but either you’ve got something important there, or that’s where this poor bastard is.”

She waves the other pages in her hand as she says _poor bastard,_ pulling a weird grimace.

The first page is tossed at him, landing on the closest corner of the mattress. It’s exactly as she described. All block capitals in a rounded, friendly typed font and printed on cheap white paper.

Even from here, Eames can see that the other three pages she’s still holding are printed on good quality photography paper.

“Who?” he asks, setting the mugs down on the window ledge and snapping his fingers at her.

She gives them up easily enough, staring expectantly at him in search of answers.

The photos are printed in colour. Each one fills the page, three portrait pictures of none other than Dominick Cobb’s little bloodhound, _Arthur._

The first image has clearly been taken from a distance.

Arthur, schoolboy satchel in hand and wearing one of his ever so charming Versace suits, walking down a busy street. Wherever he is, the signs are written in English.

He’s got his patented scowl on. The one Eames likes to keep count of on jobs, mostly out of sheer boredom because, honestly, most jobs with Arthur are dull as fuck. The man’s too good at eliminating threats, it’s like he _wants_ an easy life for his teams or something.

The second image is less charming.

Arthur, sitting in what looks a hell of a lot like a basement, zip tied to a metal folding chair and glaring directly at the camera, as if he might eviscerate it with the force of his disapproval. Other than looking a bit ruffled, he seems more cross than anything else, which is really his default mode anyway.

In the third image, the chair is gone. So are most of Arthur’s clothes.

Eames hasn’t spent much of his life thinking about what Arthur gets up to in his free time, but he sincerely doubts it usually involves getting strung up from ceilings by his wrists and electrocuted.

For an incredibly brief but entirely legitimate two seconds, Eames considers burning the images and getting back in bed. However, it would be rude not to do something about Arthur’s predicament and at the end of the day, Eames’ mother never let rudeness slide. Or guns at the table, but that’s another matter entirely.

“Who is it, then?” Sam demands and for his troubles, Eames almost replies _Not a clue,_ just to push her off.

That’s not true, though, and even if he wanted to lie, he’s spent too long looking at the pictures already to be entirely removed from them.

“A - coworker,” he replies.

“And what’s in Brezovica?” she asks, stretching back starfish over her bed and lazily kicking the sheet of paper with the coordinates, so that it flutters to the floor.

“There could be evidence on that,” he grumbles, to which she merely makes a seashore _psh_ of sound. “I suppose _he’s_ there. But also -”

A thought dawns on him, dew damp and cool over his spine. He perches on the foot of the bed, picking up the fourth piece of paper and staring at it.

“Also?” Sam prompts, toes wiggling at his hip.

“Ok, so it’s entirely possible that I stole some rather valuable items from a lovely little holiday home belonging to an extraction client a few years ago.”

Samantha lifts her head up to stare ocean wide eyed at him.

“And by entirely possible you mean -”

“I mean that’s exactly what I did.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Eames frowns at her. There's something unsettling about being given a look of disapproval by a woman who makes her living preying on addicts, who sews blood diamonds into a cap she stole from a soldier serving his Queen and Country. Eames’ scruples are flaky at best, but he’ll happily measure himself against Sam, because he always comes out the other end feeling good about himself.

Sam laughs, untying her blanket from around her neck and wrapping it properly around herself. She takes the coffee with the milk, hums gratefully and then asks,

“So, why has your ex-client-mark kidnapped your 'coworker’?”

She marks a silly, exaggerated bunny ear quote with two fingers around the word _coworker,_ like it's some sort of amusing code.

“I don't - why did you say it like that?” Eames asks suspiciously.

He sits on the foot of her bed, the troubling photographs laid out before him and the sugar swamped coffee cup in his hands.

“Well you've obviously had sex,” Sam chuckles, fluffing up her pillows to lean back against them.

Eames scoffs.

“There's nothing _obvious_ about it.”

That jackal crow laugh, mean and sarcastic in her red mouth.

 _“Please.”_ Her toe nudges the first picture of Arthur, all suited and delicious and grumpy. “You're telling me you wouldn't bend over your own car bonnet for that face any day of the week?”

“And twice on Sundays,” Eames agrees without question. It’s the truth. There's a particular shape Arthur's mouth makes when he's three shades shy of angry that Eames regularly has to angle his legs accordingly to adjust himself for. “Just because I would, doesn't mean I have, though.”

Sam sips her coffee loudly, slurp of wet lips, holding the cup in both hands with her pinkies so high in the air, they're just begging to get broken.

“Well, have you?” she asks.

“Of course I have!” Eames cries. Christ, he's only human, and that scowl is a wet dream. Never mind the goddamn _dimples._ “Only the once. And it was years ago.”

Eames is aware this doesn't make it _not count._ Plenty of things happened years ago that are still rippling in the waters he treads. After all, it’s not like he's going back to Maida Vale for Sunday dinner any time soon, no matter how many years have passed since his mother changed the locks.

“Who is it, anyway?” Sam asks, hungry glint of her magpie eyes.

Eames almost lies again. It would be prudent to keep it to himself. Sensible.

Sam's a friend, as much a friend as Eames has ever had in this town, but she's a disloyal one in her very bones. He has no doubt if he hadn't found out about the hitman from Sayid, she'd have happily not breathed a word to him about it.

She's looking at him with those knowing eyes again. Eames wonders, not for the first time, how screwed up he must be that he seems exclusively attracted to people that frighten him.

“It's Arthur,” he says, and it's sort of worth it for the way her whole face lights up, childlike glee.

“Oh, _that's_ Arthur. Gosh he is cute, isn't he?” she wriggles where she sits, peering at the upside-down image with that starving jackal face. Then she looks up, realisation like a new dawn. “Wait a sweet second. You've fucked _Arthur?_ And you're still breathing free air?”

Eames laughs. Honestly, he's surprised as well.

“I don't think Cobb knows,” he admits, and Sam shares his amused relief, grinning. “And I can safely say if there's one reason to be glad Mallorie’s dead, it's so -”

“- so she never finds out you bad touched her puppy?” Sam sniggers, biting the tip of her tongue playfully.

Eames splutters, offended.

“It was not bad touching! Christ, it was entirely consensual, mutually satisfying sex. You don't even _know_ the Cobbs -”

“I met Mal Miles once.”

Eames blinks at her, sliding his untouched coffee back onto the window ledge and starting to root around for his clothes. He's pretty sure he managed to keep them on until they reached the bedroom.

“You what?” he asks, then, shaking his head, “No you did not.”

Sam clutches her coffee closer to her chest, legs curled up towards herself as she pouts at his disbelief.

“Yes I did. In Tel Aviv,” she says, something akin to a genuine smile pulling at her mouth. She's really quite beautiful when she isn't snarling. “She was drunk as a skunk at a fancy resort bar, just finished a job with Solomon Wiles. I sold her six vials of Grade A somnacin and threw in a taste of blow for the hell of it.”

She says it flippantly, visibly going for nonchalance. It startles a loud laugh out of Eames anyway.

He pauses in his search to pick up one of the photos of Arthur. The second one, with the perfectly formed glower piercing straight through the camera lens, javelin sharp fury.

Eames thinks Arthur is probably quite beautiful when he isn't snarling, too. Eames wouldn't really know, though, because Arthur's always snarling.

Dropping the photo with a huff, he returns to hunting for his clothes amidst the rubble of the bedding, shoving his feet into the legs of his jeans.

He sighs, softer chuckle as he pulls them up, and says to Sam,

“If Cobb ever comes after me for bad touching his puppy, I am throwing you so far under the bus, you'll be picking engine out of your spleen.”

Sam rolls her eyes, draining her coffee and picking up Eames’ from the ledge.

“Charming. Also, those are my jeans.”

“Jesus, where the fuck are my clothes?” he snaps, kicking the stupidly small jeans off and snatching up what _must_ be his.

There's a men's shirt hanging on the back of her bedroom door that definitely isn't his but looks like it'll probably fit. His own is stained with rum and coke from her tantrum yesterday, anyway.

As he throws the silk-but-not- _silk_ dressing gown at Sam, he lets out a groan of realisation.

“Oh Christ Almighty, Arthur's going to kill me,” he mutters. Nabs her deodorant and the shirt from the door. “Maybe I should just let Djokovic have him?”

Sam gives him a dark, eyebrow judging look. He realises, with absent dissonance, that he's glad she and Mallorie Miles met, even just the once. He's certain they got along well.

Possibly a little too well.

_“Eames.”_

Eames rolls his eyes. It's not like he _meant_ it. Mostly.

“I know, I know. It's just, I'm going to owe Arthur so many favours now. Do you know what it's like, when you owe Arthur a favour?”

He buttons the shirt, soft linen, blue and white and grey. A hell of a lot nicer than the one he's left somewhere between her sheets.

Sam shakes her head, thumbs tapping against the mug in her hands, her rings loud on the ceramic.

“He’s a taxman of biblical proportions,” Eames explains, eyeing the floor for his shoes. “I have seen livelihoods crushed by debts owed to that man. He just shows up out of nowhere, demanding recompense. One day I'll have to put my whole life on hold to -”

“You mean a little bit like how Arthur's whole life has been put on hold, so he can get tortured because of your sticky fingers?”

Sam's smiling innocently at him from her bed sprawl, smiling like she hasn't caused _just_ as much trouble as Eames in her time. And she's younger than him, for goodness sake.

“Don't be cute, Sammy,” he warns.

Stuffing the photos and paper back into the discarded envelope, Eames returns it to the back waistband of his jeans, collects his wallet from her bedside drawer and pulls out an extra few notes of Kenyan shillings, which he waves at her.

“I think that makes you my rent boy,” she says without objection.

“You were going to let Mr Oldham, whoever he is, blow my head off.”

“But he didn't,” she points out with a shrug. “And instead, I blew you. Fair trade.”

Eames mostly agrees. And really, given the nature of the message left in the envelope, it seems unlikely he's going to get his head blown off. He's still keeping the cash, though.

He straps his watch back on and checks the time. It's almost half past eight; the sun is close to punishing through the window already.

Whenever he's out of Mombasa, he doesn't exactly _miss_ it, per say. It's leaving in the first place that's the hard bit.

“Do you need any help?” Sam offers, sounding very much like she already knows the answer.

“Not from you, ta,” Eames retorts anyway.

Despite it not being a surprise, Sam sneers at his response. She's surprisingly sensitive about that sort of thing for a wanted criminal.

“Oh, so this is one for your less morally ambiguous _friends,_ is it?” She drains her second coffee and it knocks down hard on the window ledge next to the first one. “Going to call Chloe Sheldon or Jack Smallhouse?”

Chloe Sheldon is dead, and Jack Smallhouse hasn't worked a dream in over three years, not since his son died while he was on a job halfway across the world. Eames isn't going to tell _her_ that, though.

He purses his lips at her and with a laugh like a sea breeze, the storm lifts out of her fickle face. She shrugs her shoulders, still clutching her blanket around herself in a terrible, false display of modesty.

“I could _galvanise_ the team,” she teases. “Ooh, your Arthur's friends with the whizz-kid, isn't he? Miss Architect Extraordinaire.”

She wiggles her fingers in a tiny jazz hands motion. Eames leans into the frame of the doorway, bemused, his arms folded tight across his chest.

“How do you even know this stuff? You're not a - no, you know what? I don't care. You're a nosy sod. And you're not going anywhere _near_ Ariadne, you hear me?”

The look on Sam's face makes it all too clear that Eames has absolutely no way of enforcing this, which is true enough. She'll probably respect it anyway, though. She does most of the time.

Despite her nosiness, she doesn't actually mix with dreamsharers beyond selling their stock. Except to do hard drugs with them in Tel Aviv, apparently. Or fuck them sideways every few months in Mombasa.

“I think we'd get along swimmingly,” Sam sniffs in reply. Insincere as the suggestion is, the idea makes Eames’ skin crawl.

 _“She_ is one of Cobb’s Angels,” he points out, tell-tale tease. “You, on the other hand, are toxic waste.”

She knows better than to be offended by that one. Eames is fairly certain he called her worse the day they met.

She _did_ have the business end of a glock pressed to the base of his skull at the time, though.

“I'll deal with Mr Oldham, shall I?” she offers in a sugarcane voice.

“If you would,” he replies.

Blows her a kiss and waggles his fingers at her.

“Give your boyfriend a kiss from me,” she adds, sniggering, and the waggling of his fingers quickly turns into something quite different as he disappears out of the bedroom.

He's halfway across the living room when her voice trails after him,

_“Blighty! If you die, can I have your PASIV?”_

He stops, tooth grit grin. Walks over to her coffee table with the map of Johannesburg and moves several of the pins around.

“If you can find it,” he shouts back, before departing quietly, leaving the front door wide open in his wake.

|*|

**cadenza | nine**

It was September, apples and wheat. Golden summer’s death, those fading trees littering the streets.

The job was difficult. More three in the mornings than there’s any right for one person to see.  Eames drank his weight in lucozade like he was fifteen again and missed every reasonable mealtime by at least three hours.

By day five their extractor, Dominick Cobb, was on the warpath and his loyal shadow, Arthur, a shapely simmering temper in charcoal grey and pastel blue.

Eames had never really noticed the hostility that resided in the cage of Arthur’s mind. Like any good point man, his subconscious control, even in the earliest of days, was such that even when actively trying to be an asshole, Eames hadn’t managed to provoke more than a few frowns from his projections during practice runs.

Only, in this September rage, Arthur regularly snarled at them all like a splashed cat.

“Are you ready yet?” he asked on day six and Eames might have punched him, had it not felt like he’d be punching a child, those glassy eyes bright with worry.

“I’ll let you know when I am,” Eames replied instead, tight grin pried out of him like fingernails from their beds.

The job was difficult. Mal, Cobb’s formidable, alluring wife, wasn’t dead yet, but she would be within the year. Looking back, Eames will realise her ghost was already there, haunting them, even before the end.

Eames never liked the turn of any season, save perhaps the tilt of spring into summer. He was a creature of the sun, really, should have been born in the desert; has long made up for it since.

The job was difficult. It took two weeks longer than it should have done.

And there was that moment, wasn’t there?

That moment in the thick of the extraction when Eames found himself pinned to a bed starfish, letting out breathy seductions three octaves too high, wearing the skin of a buxom brunette he had inadvertently stolen from an old secondary school teacher.

The mark’s face was buried between his slick twitching legs and suddenly there was Arthur in the doorway, the go signal, the time-to-move prompting, the all clear.

His eyes on Eames’ gasping girl’s face, hard eyes, dark as shadows. Looking at Eames and looking so _disapproving._

It was so unexpected, so unwarranted, Eames almost lost the forge as a heavy wall of shame seemed to crumble over him, to be looked at like that.

Arthur, looking at his face even though there were surely more interesting places to be looking in that dazed, stretch of a moment. Dreams inside dreams, elastic clocks.

Eames, he lay stretched out on the bed and he looked back at Arthur’s deprecation and felt it like a knife. The shiver of a wet tongue inside a place that shouldn’t have existed burst a firework out of his mouth, a caterwaul cry, and then Arthur was gone, taking away his censure and his stare and every trembling ounce of Eames’ self-worth, too.

The job was difficult. Two different forges, three orgasms, an effective piece of blackmail and a shouting match.

Then it was over.

Eames went back to his hotel and Cobb flew back home without so much as a mention of the word debrief and Eames, well, he assumed Arthur did, too.

Only, there was Arthur at the hotel bar, two whiskies, an ice cube apiece.

They drank in silence, toothy bruise mouths set with daring resolve.

There was a moment, then, too. A moment where things might have changed between them. Things might have softened, or altered, or grown.

Arthur put down his empty glass, opened his mouth and said,

“Goodnight, Mr Eames.”

Then he got up and left the hotel, carrying his bag over his shoulder like Christopher Robin on a Sunday afternoon.

Eames thinks, looking back, that that’s probably not what Arthur wanted to say at all.

|*|

**mombasa, kenya**

Eames sits in his flat, legs crossed on the sofa.

The very air, saffron and salt; a warm breeze tickles the translucent curtains as the noisy street below echoes up the walls, tumultuous spider legs of sound.

He holds in both hands delicately the third photograph of Arthur. His long pale body stretched up with his wrists high and his legs loose.

Bruises are splashed over his ribcage and there are Lichtenburg lines of burn marks snaking like a roadmap across one side. His face, untouched but dazed and dark with sleeplessness.

Eames runs his thumb along the edge of the paper, trying to remember how Arthur had looked on their last job together. It had been months ago, winter coats aplenty.

Ariadne had been there, too. They had finished the job in such good time Eames had taken a short holiday in Helsinki to celebrate and she had joined him.

Arthur, predictably, had declined the offer.

Eames can’t help feeling terribly intrigued by this turn of events. Why _Arthur?_ Why _now?_

It’s been almost two years since Eames waltzed out of Djokovic’s charming Croatian holiday home carrying damn near priceless bearer bonds of considerable size and age. Revenge might well be best served cold, but this feels more, well.

Lukewarm. Tepid revenge.

Before he can make any kind of decision, his phone rings.

It’s Yusuf, of course. He answers, distracted.

“Go on,” he says and is promptly greeted with a huff.

 _“You could sound a bit more grateful,”_ Yusuf says. _“I know I’m not the only one you’ve got investigating this one.”_

“She’ll clean up after herself,” Eames dismisses easily. “I just need to know what he’s doing and what he knows.”

Yusuf grumbles something, and there’s the sound of thin glass clinking.

_“Not a lot on both accounts. He’s definitely waiting on a delivery. He went to the same market stall twice and didn’t buy anything. What the hell’s going on, Eames?”_

“The less you know,” Eames replies, which is completely untrue.

He’s got proof in his hands, the shape of Arthur, who wasn’t even on the job where Eames stole the bonds in the first place.

Eames wouldn’t _dare_ steal from a client on Arthur’s watch, not even a nasty creep like Djokovic. Arthur would skin him alive.

“I’m going to Europe,” he says instead, tucking the photo back into the envelope with the others. “Might call again. Do you know anybody in Croatia?”

 _“No,”_ Yusuf lies unhelpfully. Eames doesn’t call him out on it. _“This Oldham fellow. Did you know he booked his name Arthur Oldham?”_

Yusuf pauses, a little too dramatic even for Eames’ taste.

 _“Just a coincidence?”_ Yusuf concludes in a wry tone.

“Goodbye Yusuf,” Eames replies in a clipped voice, promptly tossing the phone back down.

He looks around the flat, dark without lamps in the evening dim. He thinks about his PASIV safely tucked behind a bookcase in Yusuf’s shop and grins.

He wonders how Djokovic even found him in Mombasa, even knew to look in Kenya at all.

His hands are too tight around the envelope, crumpling it further. Even through the paper, he can see Arthur’s face shining. Of course.

“Fair enough,” Eames tells the paper containing Arthur’s threatened likenesses.

Then he goes to his bedroom, charcoal smudged bedframe, and starts to pack a bag.

|*|

Eames broke his collar bone when he was nine years old.

 _He’s too small for contact sports,_ his mother said.

 _It’s good practice,_ his father replied without taking the cigarette from between his teeth.

|*|

**cadenza | six**

It was June, orange blossom in the air like perfume in a breeze.

Eames arrived late to find a man in a suit and driver’s cap was waiting for him at the arrivals gate.

 _MR EAMES_ his sign read, which might have been dangerous. Eames shook his hand, firm grip, and carried his own bag with a haughty discomfort. Tossed it in the boot and got in the backseat.

A new-rental-clean car smell. The radio on, barely. A whispering croon of vowels as they pulled out of the waiting park.

Eames tapped a fingernail on the tinted glass and looked at Mr Saito, sitting in the backseat beside him. The space between them, stifling. Eames could smell his cologne, that stink of wealth as recognisable as the predatory stillness of his movements.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of a personal welcome, Mr Saito?” Eames asked in his most charming voice, the one that never worked on those most fluent in other men’s bullshit.

Saito, naturally, did not disappoint. With one expression he made clear his intolerance for a gentle con, and Eames, too, agreed to his terms. They measured each other, as others might do across a bar.

“To be frank, Mr Eames,” Saito said in that cool manner of his. “I want to know what you think of the team Mr Cobb has assembled.”

Eames wasn’t surprised by the request. He was, however, surprised by the sincerity of it. He didn’t think it was out of the question to guess Saito hadn’t asked anyone else so overtly.

However, there was really only so much to say.

“As long as you pay Yusuf fairly, you won’t find a better chemist. At least, not one willing to do what you need. I’m afraid I haven’t met the architect, though. I hear she’s a recommendation of Stephen Miles’ and I trust him to choose well.”

It was the truth, though his personal experience with Miles had only ever been minimal.

Perhaps it was just getting to bask in a slice of Englishness untouched by his past that had left Eames feeling so full of trust in the man.

The car paused, red light, the drivers around them being as utterly French as possible.

Saito made a polite, thoughtful noise.

“Do you trust Mr Cobb to achieve the impossible?” he asked.

 _Not anymore_ was Eames’ immediate response, resounding gunfire in his head. Perhaps Saito saw it in his face, because he raised his eyebrows.

Eames smirked, then shrugged, then laughed.

He turned to his window, to the sun-bleached buildings and the glinting cars and the ornamental curls of streetlamps. Said, drolly,

“I trust him to do anything necessary to get what he wants.”

He should have heeded his own words, then. Should have known what Cobb would do. Before he could commit his own advice to memory, though, Saito asked one more question.

“And Arthur? What do you think of him?”

Eames looked at Saito, honest as he’s ever been.

“I think he’s one of the most capable extractors I’ve ever known.”

Saito frowned, then. Distrustful.

“He is a point man,” he reminded Eames, like Eames could ever forget.

Eames smiled, as surprised by himself as Saito.

“I suppose so,” he replied, not entirely sure he knew what he meant by that.

Saito seemed to understand. He laughed, a short single syllable of sound, not so much amused as accepting.

“Very well, then,” he agreed, and that was that.

|*|

Eames is thirty-six years old.

He's been a dream forger for eleven years.

He has four permanent addresses and lives nowhere.

|*|

**MITCH | owls that do not parley**

|*|

**coda | second | arthur**

It was spring, blades of grass too young to survive the late frost. The taste of the sea at a distance, ocean currents like kisses.

Arthur sat on the porch, pretending not to listen to Mallorie Cobb justify the kitchen knife she’d nearly buried in her arm three weeks ago. He sat on the porch, listening instead to the humble hoots of a wakeful owl.

Dom shouted something from inside the house, a warning, a plea. Angry like a cliff face battered by a storm.

He was always angry by then, even when he wasn’t.

Arthur sat on the porch with his coffee in his hands, perched on the railing of the veranda, knees and back bent for balance.

The garden, utterly still in the late evening; not a single bird in sight, though he could hear their feeble murmurs.

It was spring, the sun’s rays clinging to the sky even as a yellow moon hung low beneath the clouds.

 _“Mal, please, listen to yourself,”_ Dom said, as if he hadn’t already a thousand times.

Arthur could feel it in his own throat, a burning hopeless fear. He hadn’t cried in years, but he wanted to nowadays, to look at Mal.

His friend, his dear friend. Her savage beauty almost as precious as her bright, beloved mind.

Arthur sipped his coffee, cupped in his palms, and listened to the slipstream quiet of night’s cautious approach.

 _You will be bold, one day,_ Mal told him, in their earliest days of friendship; strangers who knew each other.

And she told him, _Never forget, a life of dreams is a life imagined._

It had felt attractive then, alluring. The thought of _a life of dreams._

He understood better, sitting in the Cobb’s porch wearing a heavy sweater and loose jeans, a brace around his right foot to keep his torn Achilles in place. He understood that _a life of dreams_ wasn’t good, it was only _imagined._ It wasn’t real.

A life of dreams was a life not lived.

And he wondered, not for the first time, if he was not living a life at all, only imagining one.

As he stared at the sickly moon, her pockmarked face sad and full, he did not notice the chitter of the door sliding open behind him. He did not notice anything until Dom’s hands came into view, squeezing the rail beside him, his head bowed over his quick breaths.

Arthur braved a glance at him, promptly offering his coffee.

Dom took it gratefully, taking an absent sip with his eyes closed.

“You’re exhausted,” Arthur said with dry aggravation, a rash of impatience prickling over his skin.

Dom, he just nodded in agreement, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You cannot keep doing this,” Arthur continued firmly. “She needs real help, Dom.”

“I’m trying,” Dom insisted, defensive, pinched.

“You’re failing,” Arthur replied, and couldn’t even bring himself to feel guilty when Dom flinched, his mouth wobbling around baseless protests.

He _was_ failing. He knew it, Arthur knew it. Pretty soon, Phillipa and James were going to figure it out, too.

He looked at Dom, at the heaviness of his tall frame, looking cut down to a tree stump, clutching a lukewarm coffee like a lifeline. Arthur tried to soften, he did, despite the bubbling anger in his chest.

He put a hand on Dom’s shoulder, very light, uncomfortably placed.

“You need help, too,” he said.

 _I want to help you,_ is what he really wanted to say, only the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t force them past the barrier of his teeth.

“I know,” Dom whispered, staring at the lengthening shadows of the garden. “How’s your foot?”

Arthur obligingly stretched his leg out before him, suspended, bulky with the wrapped support.

“Still there,” he said. “Think he hurt my pride worse than anything.”

Dom grinned weakly, nodding.

“You should be more careful,” he said, in the voice of a father; the voice of a man who nearly lost his wife three weeks ago.

It rankled Arthur, but he pushed down his immediate reaction. It wasn’t Dom’s fault that his life was falling apart at the seams, that he was too afraid of losing more people to do anything other than threaten his friends into not dying.

“I should stop working with Rowles,” he agreed instead, because at least that much was true.

Dom laughed weakly, clunking the coffee cup onto the veranda floor and hopping up to sit beside Arthur. There were lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

There was a time when Arthur had thought perhaps he loved Dominick Cobb; Mallorie Cobb, too. He didn’t love each of them, though, he later realised. He loved _them,_ the pair of them. Their brightness and their brilliance.

What he had thought was a burning desire to insert himself into the non-existent space between Mr and Mrs Cobb was rather a young, needy longing, staring into an empty mirror and wishing it would reflect back that kind of happiness.

“Do you ever regret all this?” Dom’s voice was low as the owl thrum in the enclosing dark. His hair, greased by hands run through it, repetitive and ragged. “The dreams, the risk.”

It was only then Arthur realised he still hadn’t let go of Dom’s shoulder. He did so in a hasty flinch of surprise.

Dom didn’t notice, or at least, did not react.

“What’s the point in regretting?” he asked. “It’s done, Dom. We’re in it. We’re here now.”

Dom looked at him, then. His eyes, clear and blue and devastated. There was betrayal and disagreement in the hopeless downturn of his mouth and he said, quiet as the moon,

“Regret makes us human, Arthur.”

Said it with such a fine quaver of accusation it sliced into Arthur like a blade.

 _That’s not fair,_ Arthur wanted to say, but before he could muster his hurt Dom swung his legs back over the veranda railing and retreated into the house.

The owls mumbled together. The moon looked on, unhappy in her company of clouds.

Arthur stared at the darkening garden, a shiver in his limbs, and wondered to himself if Dom was right.

Two months later, Mal was dead.

He still didn’t know the answer.

|*|

Eames fell in love for the first time when he was four years old.

Calpurnia, her name was, irritable and fierce.

A fourteen stone jaguar with a missing canine and a bullet scar in her lower flank.

|*|

**zagreb, croatia**

Eames considers flying straight into Zagreb. Shining a big red flare over himself, possibly hiring a five-piece band to serenade his arrival with the Russian National Anthem for good measure.

The problem is, he doesn’t have all the facts.

He might look down his nose at people like Arthur, people who want _specifics,_ who go over every possible outcome in their head as they dream, like counting deadly sheep. He might have described such wankers as over-analysing desk monkeys once or twice.

That doesn’t mean he likes walking into no man’s land uninformed.

Which leads him to his second problem.

These people not only have _more_ information than Eames, they also have some bafflingly incorrect information, and that makes for dangerous bedfellows.

Whatever they’ve read up on Eames, it’s led them to believe the one person in this world he’s most likely to come running for is _Arthur,_ of all people. It’s not like they just picked him because he’s an easy target.

Arthur didn’t even work the job for Djokovic in the first place, so God knows who they’ve spoken to. Probably someone with a grudge against Arthur, thinking it would be good sport. It’s not like precious little Arthur hasn’t pissed off an entire cell block of crooks in his time.

Although, come to think of it, most of that was probably Cobb’s doing. The man was a loose cannon long before his wife topped herself.

Jesus, Arthur needs to invest in some better friends.

The point is, Eames _could_ have made a song and dance about getting to Zagreb.

In the end, he took a detour through Bulgaria. Sleepers piece by piece up to Beograd and back down through Sarajevo, where he promptly set up a base of operations courtesy of an ex-UN lawyer who owed Eames a favour or three.

It’s a small cottage in the sprawling outskirts of the city. A nest of trees, a skimmed stone away from Vrelo Bosne.

Once he arrives sometime shortly after the birdsong, Eames takes the day to take stock of the area, to make sure nobody’s followed him thus far.

He hasn’t spent much time in this neck of Europe. Dizzying cocktail of NATO’s ruinous aftermath and rolling vistas of sun kisses. Rubble and rivers, great scoops of time that was lost here, unrecovered.

For his sins, he does consider calling Cobb for all of half a minute.

Ultimately, the notion of explaining himself to a man who risked the sanity of five others for the sake of his own gain, no matter how bloody cute his kids are, proved too unappealing for him to follow through. Eames barely fancies acknowledging how much he'll owe Arthur for this crap, he's not stooping to owing _Cobb_ as well.

Early evening, fridge meagrely stocked, he makes a cup of tea and sits on the back step of the cottage, thinking.

Before him stretches a garden patch, overgrown and fenced. Behind it, vast darkening fields flourishing in summer’s embrace.  Tea steam curls and fans up out of his cup, sweat on his upper lip as he blows it away in sharp bursts.

It’s surprisingly green here, the temperature dropping more rapidly than the light.

Beside him on the dusty back step, the envelope containing the three damning photographs.

The real problem is this: Eames doesn’t have the first clue who Arthur would call for help. He doesn’t know who Arthur would trust first in a situation like this one.

Or perhaps the problem is that being confronted with such a conundrum, Eames is slowly beginning to realise that Arthur is possibly one of the first people he’d call in a fix. He hadn’t known he had quite so much faith in the younger man, but it’s the truth.

Being a stick in the mud makes him so inflexible that Eames has always considered it to be one of Arthur’s deepest failings. What he’s failed to appreciate, he thinks to himself now, is that it also makes him _dependable._

And Eames, he doesn’t know many dependable people.

He’s not in the business of dependability. He’s in the business of greed, and greed does not breed loyalty easily.

The air is getting colder already. Sharp in his nostrils and at the tips of ears. He tugs the woollen sleeves of his jumper up his fingers, clutching the tea to his throat.

It’s still starshine bright, pink and grey and periwinkle. Eames looks at the photos, tugs them one-handed out of the creased envelope and stares hard at them, as if they might reveal some quiet clue.

Arthur’s eyes, dark as sin and angry. Angry and frightened, Eames thinks might be true. He’s never really seen Arthur’s fear, but he thinks it would probably look a lot like his fury.

Eames sets his cup down, tucks his chin to his knees and pulls his phone out of his back jeans pocket.

He types the phone number slowly, deliberately. Considers every digit with reluctant concern.

Poppy picks up on the seventh ring of the dial.

 _“Who’s dead?”_ she asks, that jackdaw terror voice of hers.

Even now, calling his big sister makes him feel a humming, rusty mixture of guilty and calm.

“Nobody,” he snorts. “How’s mum?”

 _“You didn’t call to talk about our mother,”_ Poppy drawls impatiently. _“You only call when someone is dead or about to be.”_

Eames smiles despite himself.

“Except for that one time,” he reminds her, caramel gentle.

There were jackdaws always nesting outside their house, and that chattering laugh of hers swarms them through the telephone line. He remembers throwing stones up at the nest, knocking the eggs out of place.

He remembers Poppy collecting the smashed shells and hiding them in his room, to rot and stink under his bed.

_“You mean my wedding day, when you called to tell me you wouldn’t be walking me down the aisle after all?”_

Eames grins, pushes the phone closer to his mouth and picks up the first picture of Arthur, his glower of discontent.

“Poppycock, I love you dearly,” he tells her, and it’s so true yet he knows she doesn’t believe it. Hasn’t believed it in years because he left without a backwards glance, while his big sister, she’s the staying kind. She doesn’t understand love that also leaves. “I need to tell you something.”

 _“Oh?”_ Poppy asks, audibly distracted. In the background, a jabbering voice, young as any, and a babbling baby’s coo. _“Mitch, unless you’re about to die or I’m about to die, I highly doubt it’s anything too pressing - Jonny, no! Put that down now.”_

Eames stares at the fence, half hidden bracken deep at the bottom of the garden. The wind slices over his cheeks, stinging in his eyes.

“Poppy,” he says, in a little brother’s voice. “You remember how I painted you that Picasso lithograph?”

_“What? Yes. Why? Do you want it back? It’s boxed up in the attic somewhere.”_

Eames breathes in the swift pine air, the dewy scent of disappearing sunlight.

“It’s not a forgery,” he says.

Arthur’s photograph eyes stare up at him, judging hard.

He can hear Poppy’s thoughts, louder than his own. Hear them the way he always heard her voice across the hallway, singing Buck’s Fizz and shouting at their father.

 _“You shithead,”_ she says, and Eames snorts when he hears a gasping, desperate little voice at her end say _Mummy, you said shit!_

“I just thought you should know, in case you decided to get rid of it.”

 _“Who did you steal it from?”_ she asks, the way she used to ask where he got those sweets from, not really wanting an answer at all.

“A man called Djokovic,” he replies.

It had been so easy, on his way out. Lifting it from the wall like that. Feathery-light, rolled up and slipped in the side of the case.

The light is dipping far to the East, the Western sky ablaze.

_“Does this Djokovic want it back?”_

Eames chuckles as he gets slowly to his feet, knees cracking horribly. It’s delightful, all the little ways his body has taken to reminding him he’s closer to forty than thirty.

“Probably,” he says, collecting the mug and pictures and returning to the kitchen, with its noisy kettle and gas stove. “Doesn’t matter. Anyhow, I’m going to break into Djokovic’s house and rescue someone soon. So I -”

 _“So that’s why you called,”_ Poppy crows, she jackdaws again, a voice that belongs to Wonderland. _“You want Max’s number.”_

Eames’ brow pinches, and he drains his tea before replying,

“Yes, I do.”

_“Mitch, you know I don’t like it when you play games.”_

 “I really did steal -”

 _“Don’t get smug now,”_ she interrupts coolly. _“It’s not my responsibility to help clean up your messes anymore.”_

It was never her responsibility to clean up his messes. She just did it anyway, couldn't help herself, that wilful need to mother him, when their own refused to.

Eames stands at the kitchen sink, tapping drip of water. The house is a whistle of brick and mortar, a stopping place, unfriendly.

He wonders, sometimes, if she hates him as much as she pretends to.

“Will you call him?” he asks.

_“Why should I? Jonny! No, you can’t - for the love of God, boy, you’ve got the devil in you today. Mitch, send up a smoke signal and get Max to find you himself, hmm?”_

“He’s _your_ godfather -” he tries to snap back, but she’s already hung up.

Growl of anger, Eames tosses the phone onto the table none too lightly. It doesn't bounce well. The screen cracks at one corner, thin silk lines spidering out in every direction across the glass.

It’s the guilt this time that swallows up the calm. Bad taste in his mouth, that churlish upset. Nothing ever brought him to heel like Poppy’s disappointment, even as a wilful child.

 _“Why should I?”_ he mutters bitterly, little sibling impotence, knee jerk to that oh so clever _because I said so_ that always followed.

He’s defenceless, sometimes, despite the fortified trenches of his mind. It is so far from his heart. Closed up shop, draft smash windows.

Suddenly, his hands are scalding and he looks down in surprise to find he’s made himself another cup of tea.

God, he’s so bloody British sometimes it’s shameful.

He takes a sip anyway, picks up the cracked phone for good measure, then retreats to the cushty living room with its overstuffed sofas and squashy carpet.

There’s a small open grate, charred remains of long burnt coals. The heat is even more pitiful than the light it emits once he’s lit it, jabbing the piddly flames with the poker stick grumpily and Poppy’s voice seethes through his head.

When he can’t put it off any longer, Eames returns his attention to the little coffee table, his laptop with the questionably 90s era internet speed.

The thing is, Eames is ninety percent sure Djokovic isn’t even in Zagreb right now, never mind at the house. Eames can’t decide if that’s good or not.

The laptop whirs and grumbles, his thumbs tapping too hard in the space bar.

The manila envelope taunts him, even from the kitchen.

|*|

**interlude | poppy**

Jonny's pitching a fit to the high heavens over his studded football boots.

At seven years old, he's the only one of her five children to have inherited the Sampson fair hair, spitting image of their grandmother.

Poppy traipses after her fourth child, but she knows it's no good. The boy's put his mind to a sulk, so a sulk is what she's going to get.

 _“Jonathan Ashley Stewart, stop right there!”_   she shouts as he reaches his hand up to the handle of the front door.

His vicious, puffy pout is cast back over his shoulder like a dare.

“Why?” he demands. “It's not like you _want_ me here anyway.”

Poppy thinks it should probably break her heart, hearing her son talk that way.

Only, it's all she's heard for three weeks by now and the novelty sting has long worn off. Christ, a pair of football boots. How the living hell has she raised such soft kids?

“Well, nobody else bleeding well wants you either, so I guess you're stuck here until the martians come to take you back.”

Jonny turns back to the door, but not before she catches his badly suppressed smirk. Just as he starts to withdraw his hand, grinning at the floor, the baby starts screeching again.

“Oh, I _hate_ it here,” Jonny moans in long suffering syllables.

Poppy hesitates only long enough to make sure he stomps to his room this time, before hurrying back to the kitchen.

Paulie’s face is red with the effort of his wailing, pudgy fists flinging banana at the table.

“Oh, oh, _oh,”_ she cries back, hoisting him up out of his high chair.

He immediately grasps her hair, and she grins at the smear of banana he leaves in the strands.

“Thanks, chap,” she says, swinging him up against her chest to bounce him in a repetitive swoop, his crying soon mimicking the scoop of the movement.

Poppy squeezes her youngest tight against her, feels the vibrations of his upset through her very bones.

“I know,” she says quietly, as slowly the wailing subsides. “I know.”

Another wave of terror hits her, and she buries her face into her son’s head, stifling her own hiccoughs with kisses to his fine-spun hair, dark as his father’s. It’s been happening more, this month. That grip of panic, as if everything might at any minute unravel before her eyes.

She closes her eyes and tries not to imagine where Mitch is, or what he looks like these days, or what he looked like when he was Jonny’s age.

“It’s not fair, is it?” she asks Paulie, who gurgles in agreement.

Swinging him, lazy half-moons, she walks him through the house, feet sliding in her slippers over the floors, up the stairs. She can hear Jonny in the games room, and even through the door she can tell the game he’s playing is much too violent to be one of his own.

For now, though, she can’t bring herself to care about that. It’s already past his bedtime, another half hour of shooting zombies isn’t going to change anything.

Paulie bubbles at her throat, and she smiles, stray tears on her cheeks that transfer to his as she kisses him.

Poppy takes him into her study, the only room that’s really _hers._ Incense on the mantelpiece and only one gun, tucked far enough away that not even Jonny’s thieving fingers will find it.

“Shouldn’t have let him call you Paul,” she whispers into Paulie’s brow.

It rumbles, sometimes, inside her. There are no male lineage traditions left for her to follow, though she is a legacy herself.

She stares at the wall above her desk. The wide canvas photo of the kids, all five of them. Eighteen months to sixteen years.

Next to it, a portrait of her mother. And beside it, a lithograph, burgundies and jades. Picasso.

Not a forgery, either, and she laughs, just a little. It shakes inside her like loose pebbles in a brook.

“Should have called you Matthew, probably.”

Heaving a sigh of desperation, Poppy fishes through the locked bottom drawer of her desk for one of her many spare phones, turns it on, and dials the only number saved in it.

|*|

**zagreb, croatia**

The phone, cracked screen and heavy vibration, rings shrill and shrieking a little after one in the morning.

Eames is more or less awake, face squashed into the crook of his elbow and the growling of the laptop thrumming his thoughts.

He fumbles for the phone, gives the blocked number a suspicious eye, then answers, pressing it to his ear without lifting his head.

“H’llo?” he mumbles, fairly certain he knows who’s on the other end.

Sure enough, Max’s military derision is awfully smug as he says,

_“You know, you really ought to be nicer to your sister. She’s had a tough old time since Billy got put away.”_

It’s such a typical scolding, the same tone he used as when Eames was eight, that at first Eames chuckles. He rubs his eyes over his forearm and slowly uncurls sleepily.

“I only - what? When did that happen?”

Max makes a grunting, unimpressed sound.

_“Four months ago. Apparently girls do marry their fathers after all.”_

Eames swipes his fingers through his hair, a little greasy. The grate is cold, lonely looking in the simmering dark. He should really turn the heating on.

“Shit,” he replies, swinging his legs to the side. He thinks again on Poppy’s right-angle tone when she answered his call. Her distraction, her impatience. “No wonder she’s pissed off.”

 _“Hmm,”_ Max retorts, judgement clear. He’s always done his best to dote on his goddaughter, but it’s hard to when he cut off his family ties to save his own career from a good old-fashioned torching twenty years ago. _“So, whose house are you breaking into and why?”_

Eames leans back against the sofa, stretching out his legs beneath the coffee table, arms tucked to his chest for warmth.

“Emil Djokovic,” he replies. “CEO of an internet security firm, among other exploits. His summer house in Zagreb. I stole some bearer bonds from him a few years ago and I assume he’s trying to get me to give them back.”

 _“And just how is he doing that?”_ Max asks. On his end of the line, Eames can hear the triplet taps of his fingers on a keyboard. Then, before Eames can respond, _“Oh, Djokovic. Brother-in-law done for sex trafficking?”_

“That’s him,” Eames replies with grim enthusiasm.

_“Jesus H. Christ. You do pick them well, don’t you? What’s this Djokovic got on you, then?”_

Eames licks his lips, eyes on the black screen of the laptop. The fire’s long dead in the grate, but the air still smells of thick, sour smoke.

“He’s got hold of someone. A-friend.”

He regrets it instantly, even quicker than the hesitation that really nails it. Makes room for all kinds of half-wrong, slightly-right assumptions.

Max scoffs. A hard sound, a needle without the thread sound.

_“Fucking hell, Mitch. Don’t tell me you’re getting soft over one of your fucking bumboys? Are you kidding me? God - I can’t even -”_

“Yeah, alright, fuck you too,” Eames snarls back, hot at the ears and dry all down his throat. Nobody ever nailed the disapproval like Maximillian Sampson. “I need a cleaner and a car in Zagreb. And a way off the mainland, preferably not by air. Can you spare me the goddamn lecture while you’re at it?”

Max is silent on the other end of the line, just long enough that Eames checks he’s not hung up on him as hastily as Poppy. Then Max lets out a long-suffering sigh.

 _“Can you get to Calais?”_ he asks.

Eames tries not to be insulted.

“I’ll get wherever I bloody well need to, won’t I?”

There’s more tapping on Max’s end. A whistle and a clicking tongue.

_“Four days. Calais to Dover ferry. Be there by four in the afternoon and you’ll get on a boat safely. Ask for Lizelle Berger. Alright?”_

Eames nods, a sigh of spring relief. Dew on delilahs.

“Thanks, Max,” he says.

 _“Fucking disgrace,”_ Max retorts, and it’s almost fond, the way he mutters it, except for the fact he probably means it.

Then he hangs up.

Eames drops the phone, exhaustion hitting him freight train forceful. He clambers up onto the sofa behind him, pulling the throw on its back cushions over himself. He mentally reminds himself to send Poppy some more money when he can.

Nothing says _Sorry your husband’s a criminal_ like a little blood money, after all.

Beside him, the laptop fan whirs once more, before the winding hum of the battery dies entirely. Sleep claims him with heavy hands, fingers in his subconscious like a thief’s in deep pockets.

|*|

Eames tied the noose wrong when he was nineteen years old.

Sometimes, if there’s not enough loops, the neck doesn’t break.

Kelvin found him.

|*|

**cadenza | four**

It was April, the monarchs on the move and the swallows come to rest. The air cool; pineapple sweet on a westerly breeze.

Eames followed the mark to a ballet performance, paid too much to watch people do things with their bodies that they shouldn’t be able to do.

He remembered his sister going to classes, her hair pulled up tight and her toes blistered by the blocks. Remembered the sullen scuffing of her heels on the porch floor as she practiced.

It was hours before the mark saw fit to leave, taking with him a willowy woman at least fifteen years his junior, whom he’d approached at the upper bar with tuxedo confidence, a purr of movement and champagne.

 Eames sipped one glass of single malt all night, making easy conversation with the bartender, who had a voice sculpted for jazz and nothing fond to say of ballerinas. They traded snippets, sly looks and amusement at every finger click thrown the bartender’s way.

When he left, Eames slid several weighty bills under his empty glass, tipped his hat in a farewell salute, and the bartender gave him a soft, cotton-eyed look of gratitude, tempered by surprise.

The mark walked his lady friend to the taxi rank, his coat around her slender shoulders and his fingers in her hair.

Eames followed, leg swung over his motorbike, helmet clinging tight to his head. The night pressed inwards, traffic lights a galaxy of stars. Tall glass windows full of white light office glares.

The roads curved, the taxi going six over the limit. Eames followed at a tilt, felt the slice of cold air over the thin exposed strip his throat. Three cars behind, all the way to the house. He drove past, half a street and a u-turn.

Settled in for the night in an empty driveway to watch the house, orange light and laburnum trees.

Concealed in the shadows, he sat easy on the bike, his hands in his lap and helmet on the handlebars. His eyes on the mark’s window.

Somewhere above his head, an owl chittered. And further away, a cat screaming.

He waited there, still as a predator in the dark, thinking about the ribbons on his sister’s ballet shoes and the way she used to stare resentfully at his football shirts. Until the blackness turned to darkest grey, and to purple and to ripe pre-morning crackles of dark light.

His spine was stiff, fingers numb, and his eyelashes were dew damp. The woman left before four in the morning, just like the last one he brought back. And just like last time, the mark went for a jog promptly at four-thirty, back at five-ten.

Eames let out a breath, visible and then gone.

Until, suddenly, footsteps. Pavement dry scrapes under Italian leather.

Eames blinked, dazed and dry throated, and there stood Arthur beside him. He was wearing a thick black overcoat, hair waxy, not quite neat. His nose was pink with cold to match his cheeks.

In his hand, a thermos cup, green metallic.

Eames stared at it, eyebrows creased and thumbs twitching.

Looked back up at Arthur’s impatient scowl as he shoved it into Eames’ dry chilly palms. The slightest warmth there, like the tiny flare in Arthur’s eyes, concealed badly by resentment.

“It’s for you,” he said obtusely, and he blushed when Eames smirked. “I’ll take it from here,” he continued, pushing at Eames with a look.

He laughed, not sure why he was so surprised, not sure why he was going along with it. Swung his leg over the bike, body none too pleased with his decisions. He winced, hand flinching to his crotch and it was Arthur’s turn to smirk.

Eames stepped back, almost couldn’t believe his eyes as Arthur took his place on the bike without so much as flinching.

Arthur, on the other hand, looked only cross. He folded his arms over his chest and stared through the half-thickets at the mark’s neatly trimmed house.

“Goodnight, Mr Eames,” he said curtly.

Eames’ mouth twitched, longed to tease him, but found he didn’t have the words. So instead he cheered his thermos, hugged it tight to his chest and said, quietly,

“Good morning, Arthur.”

|*|

**zagreb, croatia**

Eames wakes up on Tuesday, day one of four before his boat to Dover departs.

It’s early, grey sky blossom and weak sunlight. He drinks more tea, showers, shoves a jumper on at the last minute before leaving the house.

There’s nothing appealing about the day ahead.

Eames is a forger. His craft is built on his ability to observe, to memorise, to embody. He carries inside him an infinite well of patience, when his attention is on a single subject.

This is different, though. Surveillance. It’s keeping an eye of everything and looking for one thing, while Eames, he’s programmed for the reverse. He almost brings the photos of Arthur with him, before remembering he doesn’t hate himself _that_ much.

Eames isn’t one to dwell on misfortune, wasn’t raised to be a navel-gazer and he has absolutely no intention of developing a habit now.

He’d woken up this morning to an email from the Snow Leopard, updating him on the Oldham situation back in Mombasa.

He had replied with his gratitude and a warning not to play with her food.

There’s nothing more to do today after that except keep an eye on Djokovic’s house and see if he can pick up any evidence of Arthur’s presence inside.

Four days isn’t long to break a man out of prison, as Andy Dufresne would attest. However unofficial that prison might be.

Eames is under no illusions that it will be a clean manoeuvre, not even if Max were to come himself, which he wouldn’t dream of. Lots of bodies to bury.

The house in question is generously sized, tucked down a long-hedged drive with a guarded gate that wasn’t so well manned the last time Eames was here. The time he walked out carrying several million pounds in bonds in a single briefcase.

He spends some time hovering at a close enough bus stop to spy on the gate through some sunglasses, sees the entirely unconcealed weapon on the guard, the barbed fences buried in the hedges.

He isn’t getting in without help finding out what’s inside, that’s for sure. Probably isn’t getting in at all unless he walks right in through the front door with his hands behind his head.

Zagreb is pleasant, this time of year. Early spring, flowers in bloom and the promise of warmth in the air; yellow with sunflowers and sunshine.

He heads into town, buys cheap coffee from a stand, two apples and pastry. Returns to see a car pulling out of a nearby driveway. Just as long, but no gate to stop him getting in, running parallel to Djokovic’s own.

Fingers sticky with flakes of pastry, his apples in his pocket and his tongue burned by the coffee, he takes a stroll towards the outskirts where Djokovic’s house hides.

It’s a slow day, that patience tester. The sun drags itself across the sky, heavy limbed sunbeams.

One car arrives, a driver and a passenger, both men.

Eames, concealed in the deserted path, stares through the thickets at the house. Those unblinking windows and the solid, squareness of the building.

It’s very pretty, really. A charming terracotta roof and small balconies on the second floor, a beautifully maintained front garden full of white flowers, a bed of bluebells lining the path to the front door.

Two very visible security cameras and four less visible ones.

And inside, somewhere, possibly below ground. A point man, tied to the ceiling, getting the ever-loving shit kicked out of him.

Eames crumples the paper coffee cup, stuffs it in his pocket and eats his second apple with such vehemence he nearly chokes. Tosses the core into the bushes along with the first one and kicks dirt over it with moody strikes of his toe.

An ugly, exasperating feeling is clawing its way up his throat. He can’t quite bring himself to think about Arthur in there, alone, maybe wondering why the fuck he’s being subjected to this, or maybe fully aware and cursing Eames’ soul to all hell.

The thing is, he also can’t quite bring himself to _not_ think about Arthur.

About his really irritating pen clicking, and that shape of his mouth when he’s three shades shy of angry, and the way he looked at Eames with hungry hope the first time they met, right up until Eames called him Peter Rabbit, and then he got sullen and ruffled.

Djokovic doesn’t show his face, in or out. There’s no indication he’s there at all, beyond perhaps the mysterious car that seems to have entirely disappeared.

At six pm sharp, the guard at the gate changes with quick, slick turnabout.

Eames considers staying out all night, but his extra jumper isn’t going to do him any miracles if it drops as cold as last night.

Even so, the light starts to disappear long before he makes a move back to his own stopping station.

The car that arrived early afternoon hasn’t left yet. At least, not the way it entered.

He goes home via the town centre, to stop at a little corner shop for cigarettes, a bag of sweets and a punnet of strawberries.

By the time Eames walks up the lonely path to the house he’s staying in, the stars are out, half hidden by dusty clouds. Near silent in his trainers, hands in the front pockets of his jumper with a little plastic bag swinging off his wrist, banging into his leg with every step.

Suburbia thrums around him, his head tucked down to watch the pavement.

He feels distinctly unsettled. It’s been a long time since he’s done a job like this.

He’s not even sure what _like this_ means. Unpaid? Unplanned? A disastrous rescue operation?

All true, to say the least.

Eames is a mercenary. He doesn’t do freebies and he doesn’t just wing it (whatever his reputation suggests, _thank you Arthur)_ and he certainly doesn’t put himself between other people and loaded guns.

Sure, he might show up with a gun of his own, or toss them a weapon, but he doesn’t _do_ this. And whatever Sam says, he isn’t doing this because he’s frightened of what Dominick Cobb will do.

He’s doing it because, well, _why_ is he?

A car drives past, squealing around a bend in the road up ahead and Eames glances upwards, just in time to see its tail lights wink out of sight.

Curiosity, he decides. He’s a cat just begging for death and he needs to know.

What the fuck kind of intel does Djokovic have that’s led him to believe _Arthur_ holds enough importance to Eames that he’s leverage?

The house comes quickly into view, and Eames stops at the sight of a dark blue car sitting pretty outside the closed garage. There are lights on inside.

After only a very short pause, he hurries to the door and peers through the porthole. A warm glow, melting butter air, dangerously inviting. Eames pulls the gun from the waistband of his jeans.

Lets himself in, door unlocked, and edges down the hallway, leaving it open in case he needs a swift exit.

Warmth hits him, a threshold of welcome and warning. His teeth are sharp piercing his tongue, thin stripes of blood bruises in his mouth. He frowns as a draft of cold air from outside rushes past him, snakes through every crevice of him, and of this house.

He creeps down the hall, is not five steps inside when from deeper inside the house, a loud man’s voice shouts,

_“Jesus, Mitch, shut the fecking door, would you? I’ve only just got the bleeding place warm!”_

Startled and amused, Eames swings the door shut with a slam, hurrying down to the living room, which is bright with fresh burning coals.

Standing in front of it is a young man with caramel hair rumpled past his prominent ears and incredibly bright green eyes.

“What in God’s name are you doing here?” Eames asks, laughing and putting his gun down on the table to pull his cousin into a hug.

Rowan, who hasn’t changed much at all since his sixteenth birthday, snorts derisively at the gun.

“Dad was going to send someone local but I told him, fuck that, save the favour. I’ll come sort you out myself.”

Rich, coming from the kid who Eames bailed out the first time he got caught by the coppers. And the second time. And the fourth.

Rowan steps back, waving his hand at the open whisky bottle and glasses he’s mysteriously sourced. He’s got a thousand-watt grin on his stupid lopsided face, his mother’s delight and his father’s resolve.

“He lets you out of the country, now?” Eames teases, instead of admitting how very bloody glad he is to see the younger man.

Rowan probably hears it anyway. He’d been fourteen the day Eames’ name finally got plucked, rotten apple from the family tree. He only mentioned it once, flippant as the nightingale, never to be spoken of again.

“Not much the old man can do he hasn’t tried twice before,” Rowan shrugs.

The nonchalance is thick and unbelievable, though, like syrup over his words.

Eames pours himself a whisky, tops up Rowan’s and they slump into either end of the biggest sofa. Dark grey, woollen cushions bursting at the seams.

“How much do you know?” Eames asks.

Rowan’s knees bounce as he sits. His whisky sloshes in his glass and he drumbeats an open palm over his thigh. All energy, this boy, even though he isn’t a boy anymore.

“Asset locked up. You want them out. I’ll dig the graves while you drive to Calais by Saturday night.”

Eames grunts his approval.

“I see you found your reading material,” he says, gesturing to the papers strewn across the room and his open laptop.

Rowan sniggers.

“I could’ve cracked your password in my sleep,” he says, thoroughly judgemental. “When I was _twelve.”_

“Bit harsh,” Eames shrugs, sipping his whisky, eyes on the fat flames licking the grate.  “How do you fancy walking into the lion’s den tomorrow?”

Rowan narrows his eyes.

“You never said anything about needing bait,” he says shrewdly.

“Well, not when I was getting a dubiously trustworthy stranger,” Eames replies truthfully, chuckling. “You’re the son of a walking OBE. Not even Djokovic would be stupid enough to do you damage.”

Rowan doesn’t look at all reassured.

“Yeah, _fifth-born,”_ he says. “I’m basically cannon fodder. And I’m the only one without stripes. Honestly, I’m lucky dad hasn’t taken his name off me by now.”

Eames gives him a dazzling, toothy look. A firelight, firearms look.

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” he dismisses. “And Djokovic’s boys don’t know you’re the unwanted runt. They’ll see Max Sampson, read _Windsor,_ and be scared shitless.”

“Ok, ok, hold on,” Rowan splutters, pouring more whisky with a splash into both their glasses. “I never said anything about _unwanted._ Stop projecting.”

“Will you do it?” Eames asks impatiently, still grinning.

“Will I waltz into a veritable dragon’s lair to play patsy for you?”

“Yes!”

“Course I will, old boy.”

Rowan purses his lips in a young smile, whisky red in his cheeks and hair curling around his ears the same way it did when he was a kid.

“When did you get so facetious?” Eames asks him, thoughtful, that twinkle little star of childhoods spoiled.

Rowan’s eyebrows slant sideways around his confusion, like he thinks it’s not a real question.

“It’s in my bones,” he replies, like Eames had asked how he learned to fight, or maybe how to lie.

He reaches for the laptop, tugs it onto his knees and clicks through a document with a look of hard concentration.

“Did you know one of Djokovic’s men has turned up dead at Diani Beach?” Rowan asks, sounding mildly repulsed.

Eames sips his whisky without comment.

“Well,” Rowan corrects. “Parts of him. Looks like Sneeuliuperd’s work.”

Rowan has the absolute gall to look disappointed.

“I thought _you_ were Sneeuliuperd,” he says, sullen and full of blame.

Eames laughs. It’s a hard laugh, no humour to it at all. He can just imagine the flinty steel in the real Snow Leopard’s eyes, if she heard that one.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he retorts. “I’m not a smuggler or a fucking drug pusher.”

He wonders, without any real consequence, if Rowan believes him.

The look on his face isn’t promising. He takes a long, steady sip of his whisky, eyes never leaving Eames’ face. He’s got his father’s eyes; accusatory, disbelieving, they take up most of his face.

“Heard you got into a spot of bother in Michigan,” Rowan says abruptly, and Eames chuffs a pigeon laugh.

“Heard you finally misplaced your virginity. What’s it to you?”

Unfortunately, it seems Rowan’s finally outgrown rising to cheap bait. He peruses a road map of Europe he’s spread out over his lap in loud unfolds, marking out border controls, and says,

“You didn’t call for help.”

Eames’ retort stutters to a halt on his tongue. He’s flushed hot, fire heat, that brushing burn over his skin too close to open flames, even from across the room.

Rowan, disappointed. Like the teenager who called his exiled big cousin for help so daddy wouldn’t find out.

“Got out of it, didn’t I?” he says, far too little and far too late.

“How?” Rowan asks.

Eames picks up his laptop and pointedly says,

“The real question is how we’re getting young Mr Arthur out of Djokovic’s cellar.”

Rowan begrudgingly accepts the return to the task at hand, for which Eames is infinitely grateful.

The truth is, he has no idea how he got out of Michigan.

One minute he was clapped in irons, the next he was on a plane out of Bishop International with a reasonably forged passport and a mysterious wad of unmarked bills to get him by.

He looks at Rowan, who is identifying a Plan C backroad route to Calais already.

“Try find a security guard we can use. Djokovic only uses mercs. Keeps them expendable but it also makes them flexible.”

“Just how much does this Arthur owe you?” Rowan replies, smirking at his map.

Eames makes a clucking sound, taps his laptop and chuckles.

“Oh, quite a pretty penny,” he says, and the lie tastes different to all the ones he’s told before.

They work half the night. Rowan turns in earlier, begging his beauty sleep and retreats to the little spare room down the hall from the master room Eames has pretended to take.

Eames sleeps on the sofa again, the fire still strong. One hand on his chest and the other resting on the manila envelope on the table.

|*|

Eames bought his flat in Mombasa when he was twenty-six years old.

His mother never liked Kenya; called it the pit of civilisation, where dogs make laws and men break them.

They probably had very different experiences.

|*|

**zagreb, croatia**

Eames sleeps on the sofa and he dreams vivid, violent dreams.

He dreams about the Kenyan coast, bleached with blood and a wavering sunset. Standing in the shallows with a spider in his cupped hands, held out before him like an offering to paltry gods.

Beside him stands Arthur. His shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows and a Royal Marine cap jaunty on his rumpled head.

In the dream, Eames looks at Arthur, though Arthur doesn’t look back. Rather, he stares out at the sun dropping into the Eastern horizon. A tea stained sunrise in reverse, rosy light splashing freckles into his face.

“I’m coming to get you,” Eames tells Arthur, and Arthur asks, in that awful bored drawl of his,

“Why?”

Eames doesn’t respond. They stand in the shallows until the moon comes, pulling the tide away from them and the spider curls up dead in Eames’ hands.

The dark sky explodes with stars and dolphins squeak sleepily and Arthur, he says,

“Find me a girl with your mouth and mind. I’ll marry her on the spot, mate.”

Eames doesn’t need to turn to know it’s not Arthur standing there anymore.

A hand takes his shoulder and Eames closes his burning eyes, drops the dead spider onto the wet sand at their feet and turns into a thick pair of arms.

He smells mud and cologne and gun oil, smells cherry blossom and spearmint. Salt of the sea. His shudders rock them both, his knees buckle and those arms catch his weight. A fist in his hair and a voice in his ear, his name, his real name, they shout for him, shout -

_“M-”_

Eames wakes up.

His eyes open before the dream can fully unravel and he’s blinded by African starshine before Rowan’s face swims into view.

He’s dressed nicely, suit casual, holding a steaming cup of strong-smelling coffee while his free hand grips Eames’ shoulder. He looks, not exactly worried, but wary.

“You’d think regularly forcing yourself into dreams would make you sleep lighter, not deeper,” he says pointedly, gesturing to a second coffee cup on the table as he steps away from Eames, who rubs the sleep from his eyes and pretends his heart isn’t choking him.

“It’s different for everyone,” he replies truthfully, sipping the coffee with a grunt of gratitude and swinging his legs off the sofa to sit upright, clicking every joint he can think of, one by one.

“You ready to rock and roll?” he asks, grinning.

Rowan throws him a falsely queasy look.

“You shower, monitor things from here,” he says, and Eames ruffles his feathers at being bossed around even though _that’s the plan._ “I’ll go see if I can not get gutted by a Serbian psychopath.”

“And a sex trafficker,” Eames reminds him helpfully. “Odds are he took over his brother-in-law’s trade after he went down.”

Predictably, Rowan looks less than comforted by this tidbit.

His caramel curls are tucked back behind his ears, greased off his face with wax. He looks a lot more like his brothers when he’s wearing a suit, looks powerful where normally he’s playful.

Eames gives him a double-fingered salute, bids him good luck.

Doesn’t see him to the door, though. Just flinches at the slam.

Eames picks up his coffee, barely warm. Cradles it in his palms and hunches into it like another dream.

On the table, the folded manila envelope taunts him.

|*|

**interlude| rowan**

Rowan Sampson was still growing into his teenager limbs the day his father sat him down and said, in his gravest voice,

_Son, something terrible has happened to Mitch. I’m sorry son, he’s gone._

Rowan had quite understandably taken that to mean his cousin was dead and had mourned his passing accordingly.

Four days later, he hauled himself out of the pit of grief long enough to call Poppy and tell her how sorry he was her brother was dead.

_What the fuck, Rowan? You too? He’s a bloody pillow biter, not pushing daisies. He doesn’t have fucking Aids and he’s definitely not dead._

Rowan had been angry for a long time after that, but he’d never expended much energy being worried about his cousin’s welfare. He’d seen Mitch punch a man so hard his cheekbone shattered, so even then he had his doubts about him being a genuine pansy.

Nonetheless, it’s moments like this when he wonders.

Moments, to be precise, like standing in a grandiose drawing room with four armed guards and a runty weasel of a lawyer type, who chuckles, eyebrows raised, and says,

“You can tell Eames he’ll get his partner back when he returns the papers.”

“Where’s Djokovic?” Rowan asks without acknowledging the man’s statement.

“Busy,” the weasel replies, eyes flicking to the nearest guard.

Rowan almost scoffs, thinking it to be some terrible warning, only to realise the man was reassuring himself. He’s _scared._

That’s new.

Rowan wonders if he’s scared of him, or of Mitch.

“Where’s your guest?” he asks with a pleasant smile.

“Busy,” is all the response he gets.

It’s pure chance, that Lady Luck that has long perched pretty on Rowan’s shoulder as a guardian angel, that allows him to spot the tiny fidget one of the guards makes. Little more than a glance of dark brown eyes as his lower lip, half hidden by a beard, tucks inwards just a little.

Rowan doesn’t quite acknowledge it. He just smiles broadly at the weasel sitting before him and says,

“I’d very much like to see him before we continue our conversation.”

|*|

**zagreb, croatia**

Eames prowls the little house like a trapped wolf for four hours.

He searches through Rowan’s room twice. The only real surprise is the nicely stocked medical kit in a gym bag. The boy’s learning after all.

Eames powers through five cups of coffee in the first hour alone. He feels agitated, unsure whether it’s leftover anxiety from his dreams, or if the dreams are merely more of the same, this horrible knot of worry that’s festering in his gut.

He can’t escape the very real sense of oily, bitter impotence at being caged in a safehouse while a kid, a _kid_ he used to babysit every other Friday as a teenager, walks into the mouth of the dragon.

 _You didn’t call for help,_ Rowan had said so goddamn morosely, like Eames had ever really made a habit of it before. He shouldn’t start now.

Should maybe have taken one look at Rowan, not yet thirty with a face like an altar boy and told him to go the fuck back home.

Only, he hadn’t. And now Max will have his heart and lungs if anything happens to Rowan, not out of love so much as principle. They are, after all, a family legacy built on principles.

Eames prowls the house until his phone rings.

“What’s happened?” he barks as he answers. His phone hot in his hand, overcharged and still plugged into the wall.

_“There’s a cafe west of the botanical gardens, between two jewellers. Meet me there in two hours.”_

Rowan sounds strange, sounds strained. He ends the call too quick for Eames to even reply.

Eames swallows dryly. Thinks about all the times he never called for help.

Leans into that thought like a fistful of feathers, carrying him out into the city centre, the final tendrils of a hurricane.

When he gets to the cafe, through the midweek summer bustle, Eames’ hands are nail bitten and his eyes are sand-blinking, hidden behind a pair of thin-rimmed glasses that feel like far more protection than they are.

The conversation ahead doesn’t seem promising, not when Eames arrives to find Rowan Medusa-struck in the far corner of the diner, powering his way through a plate of eggs like he’s welter-weight material.

Eames takes a seat with a breezy air of nonchalance. Orders a coffee from the waiter and a refill for his friend.

Rowan doesn’t look all the way up from his plate until it’s all but licked clean. Eames doesn’t sip the coffee, just twists the cup this way and that, watching the muddy liquid swirl.

The cafe is perfect. It’s busy-not-busy, and it’s empty-not-empty.

Rowan wipes his lips with a thin paper napkin that crinkles loudly when he scrunches it into a tiny ball and tosses it at Eames’ face, so that it bounces off his forehead and lands neatly on the plate. Rowan gives a false cheer before draining his coffee and finally looking up into Eames’ eyes.

Eames waits, snake poised, until Rowan gives in. Gives in with fingers ruffling his waxy hair out of its mould and a low, uneven voice as he asks,

“Who the hell is he, _Eames?”_

Eames blinks, momentarily bewildered. It’s always disorienting, that name on Rowan’s lips, where it doesn’t belong. Like he thinks it might be if Arthur were to call him anything _but._

“What do you -”

“Your _partner?”_

It’s a snarl of a word and Eames laughs, then. Laughs a trilling, trilling laugh. Disbelieving and anxious and full of disembodied relief.

“My what?” he splutters, more for effect than anything. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Christ, this gets better and better. Eames is starting to really want to know who's behind this one, now.

He must show something of it in his face, his glee or his bewilderment, because Rowan sneers at him, pithy and blithe.

“They’re torturing him,” he spits, full of impotent wrath, full of testing triggers shots, like he’s waiting to see how Eames will react.

He sees Eames flinch, there’s no hiding it. That grimace of displeasure and since when has it been a sign of weakness to dislike _torture?_

“Mitch,” Rowan says, and it’s a growl of a syllable. Like his father, like Eames’ father. Like the last day Eames had a real family to speak of.

He feels a tight, hideous acceptance as the bones of his fingers creak burning around his cup. Rowan’s lips curls as he says, straight laced accusation,

“Did you not invite me to your goddamn wedding?”

He cracks, sardonic grin. One that creases lines around his mouth as Eames’ breath falls out of him in a puff of half-laughter.

“You cunt,” he scoffs, shaking his head. “He’s not my - Jesus. What are they doing to him?”

Rowan’s grin sobers a little. He pushes his empty plate away to fold his elbows on the table.

“Playing, by the looks of it. Mice while the cat’s away and all that. Mostly sleep deprivation, that I could tell. He’s definitely well acquainted with their tasers, too.”

The first time Eames met Arthur, he was a snarling ball of Americanisms, twenty percent barley and barely old enough to drink in his own country. He liked that Arthur, the wild cat that came before the sleek Tom Ford feline he dresses up as these days.

It’s dangerous, probably, to think of him like that.

“Where’s Djokovic?” Eames asks instead of voicing his lonesome nostalgia.

Rowan shrugs, one eyebrow quirked.

“Not there, it seems,” he drawls. “Pretty shoddy power play if you ask me. He’s left a rodent in charge, with a bunch of malicious cockwits for guards. Except for one.”

Hungry faced, that gleam of green.

Eames raises his brow in question.

“Name’s Matko, and he is shifty as fuck about what they’re doing to your _partner._ I reckon I’ve gotten at least an unlocked door out of him.”

Eames grunts, refusing to bite the dangling bait locked in Rowan’s leer.

“Think he’d take anyone out for us?” he asks, still twisting his coffee around in half-circles on the table.

“Probably not _out-_ out,” Rowan replies. “Maybe a bump on the head.”

He waves over a third coffee, nodding at Eames to drink up.

The diner has a hot food, gravy grease smell to it. Thick in the air like sweat and the clink of cutlery on cheap porcelain.

He tries to sip the coffee, but he barely wets his lips, lukewarm and watery, before continuing.

“Cameras?”

“Lots outside, a few inside. They’ve got him in an upstairs bedroom most of the time. Seems pretty counter-intuitive to me. There was a perfectly nice mattress and everything.”

Eames snorts. He’s not sure whether he loves his cousin’s innocence or loathes it.

“Nothing more lasting than getting terrorised in a bed,” he says with a cold smile. “Where else are you going to sleep safely?”

Rowan starts muttering about decency, like it’s ever existed. Eames doesn’t listen.

Can’t help but picture it in his mind’s eyes, hear Arthur’s voice, the way he muffled it into a pillow as he rolled over onto his side the morning after, damp and lean and ready.

Thinks about the way he smiled across the taxi rank outside LAX after the Fischer Job, how they got drunk instead of debriefing, on that paint stripper white rum from the hotel bar.

It has occurred to Eames that beyond getting the ferry from Calais, he has absolutely no plan as to what to _do_ with a beaten up, probably-vengeful, possibly-traumatised Arthur.

It has also occurred to Eames that a beaten up, probably-vengeful, possibly-traumatised Arthur might turn said beaten vengeful trauma on _him_ and not really allow Eames to help at all.

“Did you manage to speak directly with our friend Matko?” he asks, interrupting Rowan mid-flow, much to his consternation. He never did like being ignored.

Eames thinks, unkindly, he should probably be used to it by now, what with being _fifth-born_ and all.

All the same, Rowan recovers quickly from his perceived slight, transforming his frown into a pleased grin.

“I certainly did,” he replies. “He’ll be there tomorrow. I told him I’d swing by around midday.”

Eames wets his lips with his coffee again.

Rowan folds his arms on the table, as if hunkering down for the long haul.

“So, what’s the plan, daddy-o?”

Eames pinches his brow, pained and mildly repulsed.

“Don’t ever call me that again.”

Rowan just smirks, waving over fresh coffee and ignoring Eames’ scowl as he extracts the laptop from Eames’ bag.

|*|

Eames met DI Richmond when he was twelve years old.

Kind face, kind eyes, kind lies.

Five years later, Eames’ father was in prison.

|*|

**cadenza | eight**

It was August, sweltering, sweat like ice cream and gin with extra lemon. Eames was sitting on the hotel balcony, tank shirt and long shorts.

A day off. Rather, a slow day. He’d been up all night on surveillance, should have been sleeping but the bliss wouldn’t come.

It was a good view from the balcony. Streets of terracotta and a thin distant strip of the sea, brush stroke of cerulean paint along the horizon.

He could hear the occasional murmur of conversation behind him. Had ignored preppy young Arthur calling his name and when he heard the hushing snicker of the glass door behind him sliding open, he readied himself for a lecture he had no interest in.

Only, it didn’t come. There was the clink of glass, the scrape of a patio chair pulled a little closer to his own.

Mallorie Cobb, sunglasses perched on her head, a pink splash of sunburn on the bridge of her nose, wearing a floaty black dress, tucked at her shoulders and fluttering around her calves.

Without speaking, she patiently uncorked the bottle in her hands and in long glugs poured two incredibly generous measures of icy sauvignon blanc into monstrous fishbowls. Then she leaned back, arms folded, bare feet pressed against the hot rails of the balcony.

Eames returned to staring at the skyline, picking out the tiny shimmers of green and purple amidst the blue.

He could feel her eyes on his face, squinting in the sunlight, clearly not wanting her scrutiny to be concealed by the shades keeping her hair off her face. Eames, for his part, ignored her.

Ignored her until her panther’s voice spoke, quite abruptly. Until she said,

“My best friend died when I was fifteen.”

It was a little sombre, mostly candid; almost as if she had suddenly remembered, sitting there in the baking afternoon. She’d never been good at small talk.

“Cancer,” she continued, in that same suppressed tone. “So, it wasn’t unexpected. But, it was. They said, two years. Maybe three. A month later, _pah!_ They were wrong. Marie-Jeanne. We’d been sisters for years. Twins, even. Inseparable. She died on the twenty-ninth of January.”

Mal’s eyes were starting to burn him, more so even than the crackle splash sunshine. Sweat licked down his spine and his temples, his lips tasted of salt.

“Somehow, it feels more real on that day, even now. Every January twenty-ninth, it’s a little like losing her again.”

Eames blinked, trying hard to project an air of boredom that would not come. It was difficult, those clever eyes on his face.

“Why are you here, Mallorie?” he asked, defeated, slightly curious.

She crossed her legs, toes splayed, their nails dark purple.

“I believe you have been sitting here for several hours thinking about jumping off this balcony. And I would not wish that on you. Not on anyone.”

Eames let out a very slow breath. A denial in his mouth, and an apology.

He knew, then, that he was right. No man deserved Mallorie Miles, not even her husband; _certainly_ not her husband. She was wearing her best butterfly grin, insincere and troubled, storms in her eyes.

She picked up the sauvignon and handed it to Eames.

“Here, drink your wine.”

Eames laughed, triplets of delight like rain in a cloud.

“You are the most French person I have ever met,” he told her, taking the icy glass and sipping, mostly to please her.

She shrugged, looking unapologetic, as was her right.

“I could have brought cheese, too,” she suggested.

Eames nodded, fond agreement. They clinked their glasses together, a sting of sound in the air.

The sun on their heads, burning, and on their faces.

|*|

**zagreb, croatia**

Eames walks down the street with his hands balled into fists in the pockets of his jacket.

The air’s cooler today, damper; it’ll probably rain tonight. Even from here, he can see the guards at the gate shifting, unnerved by his direst, unflinching stare.

One of them elbows the other, and a radio is pulled from a belt. The other takes out a handgun.

Eames grins, lascivious and cold. Keeps walking, keeps watching.

Closer, they are shifty, conversing in sideways speech. Deliberating whether they recognise him or not. Eames maintains his leisurely pace, until one of them, the one with the gun, beefy shoulders and a dark moustache, shouts out to him.

_“Stop!”_

Eames never did respond well to authority.

He speeds up.

The gun is raised.

_“Stop! Stop!”_

The smaller man jabbers into his radio and Eames is close enough to hear a voice crackle back when he obeys. Well, sort of. Pauses in his tracks, then slowly, deliberately, walks in steady half-steps.

“Hands!” the gun wielder says. _“Hands!”_

Eames extracts them slowly from his pockets. Fingers spread jazzy as he raises them to head height.

“On head!” the guard says, jerking the gun upwards. “Hands on head!”

He’s roaring, bright pink spots splashed across his grizzled face.

Eames is still smiling pleasantly as he knots his fingers together around the back of his head. The opening of his jacket widens, letting air slip up around his torso and revealing, just a little, his holstered gun.

“Oh, and I’m armed,” he confesses belatedly, as the guard starts shouting _Knees! Knees! Knees!_

“What, right here on the street?” Eames scoffs, glancing to the road. “If you’re sure.”

Slowly he lowers himself, hands still in his hair. The radio voice starts shrieking in harsh consonants.

“Up! Up!” the one without the gun corrects, gesturing with his radio. “Inside!”

They’re flustered, frantic, and Eames almost feels sorry for them. He smiles at them, friendly, indulges them like children.

“Hurry!” one of them hisses, followed by guttural mutters and a hand fisting the back of his shirt in a deep shove.

Eames doesn’t flinch as they take hold of his elbows, tug his arms outwards to shepherd him into the slip in the gate and up the drive.

He scuffs his heels as he walks. Counts the metres with finger taps and thinks idly, despising,

_You’re not the men who took down Arthur. You wouldn’t have stood a chance._

It doesn’t take long to get to the house, where waits two more men who at the very least seem calmer than the ones pinching the meat of Eames’ arms like cadets on their first outing.

He eyes the front facing house cameras, the motion sensor buried in the flowerbeds, and allows himself to be manhandled to his knees.

“Bit forward,” he grins up at the angriest looking guard, who is probably the one in charge. They often are, he’s found.

He’s tall, thick set, with crystal blue eyes and a mean looking mouth.

He takes the gun from under Eames’ outstretched arm, considers him. Eames opens his mouth to suggest they take this inside, gravel digging into his kneecap, but the words don’t come.

The handle of his own gun smashes with considerable force against the side of his face and Eames knows he only stays upright because of the hands holding him in place.

Dizzy spots dance painfully in his vision as he blinks, fuzzy surprise and mouth slack.

“Welcome, Mr Eames,” the man says. Then, to his colleagues, “Inside. Search him.”

Luckily, they hoist Eames up with enough difficulty that he has time to get his feet under him, scraping them up the shallow front steps and into a well-lit hallway.

There isn’t a grand tour, much to his disappointment.

He gets a good view of nicely polished stairs and a painting that wasn’t there last time he was here, before he’s dropped unceremoniously back to his knees in a terribly chintzy living room.

Eames wonders with rolling amusement if Djokovic’s grandmother helped him decorate.

Before his sense of disdain can get too worked up, however, another man walks in.

He’s reed thin, wiry hair streaked with grey tangled on top of his head like a rug and a pinched expression. He stands quite a distance from Eames, surveying him as if committing him to memory.

Eames memorises him right back.

“Just one gun, Mr Eames?” the man asks without introducing himself as one of the guards hands him everything they found on Eames’ person. “I’m insulted.”

Aside from the gun, there’s also a wallet carrying absolutely nothing of value and a piece of A4 paper, folded twice.

The man unfolds it, looking unimpressed, and Eames smiles indulgently.

“What’s this?” the man demands, holding up the page bearing only a set of coordinates.

“That would be the location of the bonds Mr Djokovic is so keen to have back,” Eames replies in his most accommodating tone.

The man is less than amused, the paper creasing in his tight fingers and his mouth twisting.

“Do let him know he’s more than welcome to give Sachs a call and ask for their immediate return.”

The man hits him, too, little more than a love-tap four inches below the purple swelling of Eames’ cheekbone from the pistol. He smiles, then, even though Eames is fairly certain he should be embarrassed if that’s honestly the best he’s got.

“You’re going to have many regrets by the time I’m through with you, Mr Eames.”

Eames laughs, a little cold, and the chill eats his oesophagus, all the way down to his kneecaps digging into the floor.

“What exactly do you know of regret?” he asks, to the man’s impassive stare.

He doesn’t respond. Merely turns on his heel, nodding once to two of the guards. A radio is pulled, and the door doesn’t swing closed after the three men leave through it. There’s a moment of stillness, like a dream about to collapse.

Eames stares at the two men watching over, not even attempting subtlety as he searches their faces for some sign of Rowan’s inside man.

One of the men, bored, and the other, grimacing. Eames’ muscles strapped velcro to his bones, ready to peel off in shreds. He stares up at the grimacing man, at his dark eyes and his slick hair and his folded thumbs and he strains into it like a racehorse.

“Please, don’t,” he says, a warning, and something else entirely.

They take hold of his upper arms between them, zip ties digging into his wrists behind his back, and drag him heavily up into one of the hardback wooden chairs. More zip ties loop him easily to the rails of the chair, ankles to the legs and he sighs deeply as if to express just how accommodating he’s being by allowing all this nonsense.

The man returns promptly just as the guards step away again. Eames’ gun, wallet and paper are all placed neatly on the mantelpiece before he pulls out of his pocket a small recording device of some kind.

“Your proof of play for Mr Djokovic?” Eames asks pleasantly.

The man doesn’t reply, other than to press a button.

After a few crackling moments, a voice plays, speaking what might be Croatian.

Then another, far more familiar voice.

_“I assure you, whatever you think you’re going to achieve here, gentlemen, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I haven’t so much as spoken to Mr Eames in months.”_

Eames doesn’t react to Arthur’s voice, not even to smile, although he wants to. Arthur sounds downright cross, which is terribly sweet. Eames can just imagine him, tied maybe to this very chair, dishing out judgement like he’s being paid by the hour.

_“I think you’re lying. I think you know exactly where Eames is.”_

It’s the man holding the recorder, nasal and tart. Eames nods at him a little teasingly in acknowledgement.

_“I never said I didn’t know where he was, Mr Marić. Just that we haven’t had contact.”_

Marić, a generic enough name. It’s probably not real, but at least Eames can stop thinking of him as _Weasel_ in his head.

Arthur sounds ever so slightly out of breath, Eames realises, when he lets out of puff of sarcastic laughter.

 _“Where is he, then?”_ Marić asks in the recording.

Arthur lets out that laugh again.

 _“Now, why would I tell you that, Mr Marić?”_ Arthur scoffs.

“Jesus Christ,” Eames mutters under his breath, shaking his head.

What the hell was Arthur playing at? Eames is uncomfortably aware that were their situations reversed, he’d have handed Arthur over in a heartbeat.

Never in a thousand years of dreams would Eames have expected Arthur to show so much as a scrap of loyalty to him.

 _“This doesn’t have to be unpleasant, Arthur,”_ recording-Marić warns lightly.

The real Marić, gripping the recorder like a rabbit’s foot, smiles at Eames as if to say, _This is my favourite bit._

 _“I think we’re long past unpleasant, Mr Marić,”_ Arthur replies dryly.

The man’s name is barely spoken before something rips in the recording, and straining through the tinny speaker, Arthur lets out a scream that pierces straight through Eames’ ears, right through his lungs and embeds like shrapnel in his chest.

He flinches despite himself, curling inwards even as the recording clicks off before Arthur can run out of breath.

“There is plenty more, if you like,” Marić offers and Eames grimaces.

He looks up at Marić, at his leer of approval for Eames’ discomfort.

“Well, you’ve got me,” Eames says cheerfully. “I suppose that means you can let Arthur go, then. Hmm?”

Marić has a rusty laugh, not entirely unpleasant, if it weren’t for being at Arthur’s expense.

“I want the bonds you stole, Mr Eames.”

“I told you, you’re more than wel–”

The punch comes from the left, entirely unexpected. The rest of Eames’ words fall out of him in one long syllable, snapped to the side, in exactly the same place as the gun had struck him. At least the guards have decent aim.

There’s a ringing in his ears none too dissimilar to Arthur’s scream.

“The bonds, Mr Eames.”

“I don’t _have_ them,” he snarls. “I _sold_ them. It’s what I do, as Mr Djokovic well knows.”

Marić tilts his head, rabbit frown face. He folds his arms, unfolds them. Pulls up another chair and takes a seat just shy of headbutting distance from Eames.

He stares at Eames with fascination, eyes roaming his face as if for signs of weakness. He lifts the recorder again, presses the button and Arthur’s scream, right in Eames’ face, is one of the single most unpleasant things Eames has ever experienced.

There’s the buzz of fast forward, the click of Marić’s thumb on the device, and then the rev of Arthur’s panic.

_“–are you doing? Get the fuck – don’t – get the fuck off me – I will kill you – I will skin you you are dead you hear me you’re skinned I will gut you like a fucking pig –”_

Another click, and in the quiet space the breath Eames lets out is so fucking loud, he shakes with it.

Marić, pleased, and Eames swallows hard. Breathes in, and then out, and then something in between.

“I told you,” he says. “I sold them. This won’t make them any less sold. Let him go.”

Marić shrugs, indifferent as he leans back into his chair, entirely at ease. He folds his arms again comfortably, settled in for the ride.

“You are aware of Mr Djokovic’s, hmm, _side_ projects, aren’t you?”

Eames clenches his teeth so hard, he can taste his fillings.

For the first time since he walked into Sam’s bedroom to find her looking at those photos, genuine, white hot fear curdles inside him. His mouth is dry, his stomach wet. He could throw up right into his lap.

Marić, so calm, so considerate. So indifferent to the implication.

“Your Arthur’s not exactly ugly, is he?” he points out, like Arthur isn’t the prettiest thing Eames has maybe ever seen in his life. “I’m sure we could find someone more than willing to pay for the privilege –”

“I will kill you,” Eames says in such exact, precise imitation of Arthur’s recorded voice it would perhaps in any other circumstance make him laugh. All he does now is swallow down the sick horror rising up his throat, burning like bile. “This has nothing to do with him. This isn’t even – it’s just _money,_ you can’t –”

“Just money?” Marić scoffs, and even one of the guards behind Eames laughs, too. “You should have thought of that before you decided to steal from Mr Djokovic, shouldn’t you, Eames? Maybe we _should_ keep your lovely Arthur, let him help make back the money. How does that sound?”

“He’s not my –” Eames snaps, impotent. Bites down the words because they won’t help. He won’t convince them otherwise and even if he does, that might only make it worse. He licks his lips with a dry, swollen tongue. “I promise, I am not lying. I sold them. They’re gone. I sold them within _days_ of taking them. For all I know, Sachs has gotten rid of them since.”

Marić makes a tutting sound, disappointed parent over a naughty child.

“This is a predicament, then, Mr Eames.”

He looks at the door, still open. Calls out two more names and Eames leans his head back in a long stretch.

To his right, past one of the guards on the mantelpiece he can see a small ornate clock. It’s close to midday. Rowan will be here soon.

He needs to hurry things along, but he still has no idea which of the guards is Matko, if Matko’s even in the _room._

He makes another aborted attempt to scan the room, their faces that range from bored to repulsed.

Only, then most of them leave at Marić’s signal, until there is only interrogator, interrogatee and two flanking bodyguards.

That’s when they drag in a floppy, tangled creature; four limbs and a lolling head on a bony neck.

They drop Arthur a few steps from Eames’ feet.

He’s wearing boxer shorts and a tank shirt, both damp but not entirely unclean. He’s mottled brilliant purple, green at the edges as old bruises fade under new ones and Eames can’t tell if he’s asleep or paralysed, but he’s definitely been drugged, mouth slack and eyes slits.

Eames bites on his tongue until the sharp pain overwhelms his need to say his name, to whisper it like a charm.

He drags his eyes away from Arthur’s young, puffy face and up to Marić’s pleasant, disgusting smile.

“Please don’t do this,” he says, as tears well up like the tide in his eyes.

|*|

**interlude | matko**

The morning is coming to a rapid, racing close.

 _Shall we say midday?_ The man from yesterday had said. Rowan, his name was. Like the tree.

The minutes tick closer, Matko watches the little mantelpiece clock out of the corner of his eye as Marić talks in circles with the new prisoner, Eames.

Matko doesn’t know what to make of Eames. He’s shirty and snide with the guards even after getting slapped around, then outright refuses to give in to Marić’s pushing, other than to insist he can’t give them what they want.

Right up until Ivica and Ales drag the first prisoner, Arthur, in.

They’ve given him another shot, judging by his limp sprawl on the floor. Matko tries to make out his pulse in the exposed line of his throat, but he can’t see anything.

He expects Eames to get angry, like he had done at the second recording. The man’s got a temper in him, Matko can sense that even without seeing it. He thinks, probably, this is a man who fights dirty, who kills with his bare hands.

He doesn’t get angry, though. He does something far more unexpected.

“Please don’t do this,” the man, Eames, says, a deep tremor in his voice, and his eyes are suddenly very wet.

He visibly tries to stifle them, but as he blinks too quickly they drop down his face, which burns crimson with embarrassment, or maybe just from the sheer horror of the battered body stretched out before him.

Marić loses his smile with cold distaste, nods at Ales, who closes the door, shutting them in, Marić, his prisoners and his two loyal guard dogs. Matko bites the tip of his tongue inside his mouth.

The clock ticks loudly in his ear, the minutes rushing to midday.

Should he do it?

It would take nothing to strike Ales down with the handle of his gun, and Marić, he’s confident, but he isn’t a natural fighter. It would take very little for Matko to subdue him, if only momentarily. It would be enough.

Marić stands, almost as if to leave, but he doesn’t.

Arthur’s lying on the ground, paralysed, but Matko knows he isn’t unconscious. It clenches in his chest.

Marić, he stands, and his foot strikes out fast, connects hard with the side of Arthur’s head.

A sound rips out of Eames’ mouth, a bullish, hurting sound, like the kick had struck him instead.

“Please don’t –” he cries. He stammers over his words as Marić reaches into the pocket of his blazer and withdraws a knife. “I’m begging you – please – he’s not – please –”

Matko digs his fingernails into his palm behind his back. To his right, Ales smirks.

“He’s not done anything – he’s got nothing to do with this – please – please don’t – you c-can’t –”

A noise squeals out of Eames, then, a stuck pig sound of utter terror at Marić’s sly, indifferent knife pressing just shy of hard into the soft bed of Arthur’s lower lid.

Blood swells slowly up around the blade. It would take nothing for Marić to slice down, nothing for that knife to slide right through the thin skin of the younger man’s eyelid and into the scoop of the socket beneath.

 _“Stop!”_ Eames bellows, wounded hound and Matko flinches.

Marić, smiling, grinning, goddamn pleased.

And the terrorised man, Eames, pleading and even to Matko it sounds alien. Tears spilling down his cheeks in sobs, they ring in Matko’s ears and he thinks about Arthur shrieking down in that basement, the sound he made when the electric burns burst over his side.

Marić isn’t going to stop, he’s going to cut that boy’s eye right out of his skull even though he _knows_ it won’t change anything, knows it will be for nothing other than the pleasure of two men’s suffering.

Before he can stop, before he can think, Matko opens his mouth and says,

“Marić, wait.”

Marić pauses, looking up, irate and confused. He stands, and the knife pulls away, too, leaving a trail of thick, dark blood to slide in a sheet down Arthur’s slack face.

Matko licks his lips, and the shuddering loudness of the second prisoner’s fear is palpable.

“What?” Marić snaps.

“The other one,” Matko says, eyes still on Eames’ bowed head, dark gold, trembling shoulders curved. “From yesterday.”

“What about him?” Marić asks.

Matko lets out a short, jerking shrug of thoughtful sound.

“Might be worth something, too.”

Marić frowns, considering this.

Ales is staring hard, Matko can feel his eyes burning the side of his face.

“We don’t know where he is,” Marić says, which simply isn’t the case.

Matko glances at the clock. It’s two minutes past twelve.

The young one, young Rowan tree, will be inside by now, through the back door left unlatched when Matko went outside for a cigarette this morning.

It’s too late to turn back.

In the chair, Eames lets out a whimpering plea, shaking.

And then, in the silence, a gunshot ricochets through the house, loud as if it had gone off in the room between them.

Yelling erupts like weaponry.

Ales pulls out his handgun, nodding to Matko, and Marić hisses angrily at them both to go, to follow the cacophony of shouting from outside the room. The radio is blaring with voices, Ales goes first, always impatient, and Matko makes to follow.

Stops to look at Marić and is horrified.

Marić looks to the door, then to the knife in his hand.

It’s the look he gives the prisoners that does it. He stares hungrily at the lax shape of Arthur, looking disappointed, looking hopefully at the bloodstain on his knife, as if to say _That’s a shame._ As if to say, _I was looking forward to that._

And Matko, horrified, shuts the door after Ales, turns and in one swinging motion, cracks the butt of his own gun against Marić’s temple.

He goes down before the surprise can fully take hold of him, topples back over his chair and into the wall, head smacking on his way down.

Breathless, Matko turns back to the prisoners.

Arthur is still unconscious, blood still oozing down along the line of is nose from the cut under his eye.

Eames, on the other hand, has transformed.

Remnant tears still glitter on his tanned, clean shaven cheeks, but his eyes are as dry as if he’d never shed a tear in his life. Gone is the stricken horror, the wobbling mouth, the worried crease in his brow.

He looks only pleased, as he smirks up at Matko.

“I thought so,” he says, and even his voice is steady, cool as a quick running stream.

Outside the door, another gunshot, then three more.

“Are you going to untie me, then?” the man, Eames, so different from the Eames of half a moment ago, asks. “In for a penny, and all that?”

Matko is not sure what that means, but Eames is calm, the tremors vanished, and he’s not even looking at Arthur anymore, just at Matko, head cocked like a predator.

It’s as if he is another person entirely.

Matko snatches the knife out of Marić’s hand and makes short work of the zip ties holding Eames in place. The man stands instantly, shaking out his limbs like he’s woken from a nap, wiping his face free of tears and picking up his gun from the mantelpiece.

“You’re a good man, Matko,” Eames says, like that’s a compliment when it comes from a man like him.

Matko, aghast and guilty, half his thoughts still with the young man sprawled at their feet, just frowns.

“You are a monster,” he says.

Eames looks surprised by that, although not upset. He shrugs, waving away Matko’s opinion like a breeze.

“I’ve been called worse,” he replies. “Now, if you don’t mind.”

He shoots Marić once, through his right eye where he lies, opens the door and disappears out after Ales, looking for all the world like a hunter on the prowl.

Matko lets out a shaky breath, crouches to a kneel and presses his cool hand on the sweaty brow of Arthur.

“I’m not sure if you are lucky, to have a friend like him, young Arthur,” Matko says, wiping up a streak of blood with his thumb and then scooping up the young man’s frame so that’s he’s lying more comfortably on the rug. “I should go. I should help.”

He checks the magazine of his gun, then sighs deeply.

“In for a penny,” he shrugs, whatever that means.

|*|

**zagreb, croatia**

Rowan’s already taken out three of the guards by the time Eames gets to him.

He takes out two more. Clean, easy shots to the backs of their heads, and a third that barrels out of nowhere, nearly guts Eames before he can get a bullet into his chest, another in his stomach for good measure. Rowan carries his gun too easily, it doesn’t sit right in Eames’ chest.

This little boy who’s not a boy anymore. Who cried when Eames pulled a splinter out of his thumb, now comes back swinging from getting clocked in the face by a pistol.

He looks a lot like his big brothers, and Eames would be impressed if he didn’t hate it with a passion.

It’s messy, ugly, but at least it’s quick.

“Alright?” Rowan asks with a casual nod as he stands panting in the hallway, looking awfully smug. “Told you I could handle it, didn’t I?”

Christ, he’s still a child.

“Yeah, well bloody done,” Eames grunts, eyeing the strewn bodies with distaste. “Don’t forget, you’re the one cleaning this all up.”

“Yes, yes,” Rowan waves him off. “How’s your _partner?”_ he teases.

Eames doesn’t rise to it, that sickly feeling swelling in his gut to think of Arthur lying in the side room back the way he came. He’s not too proud to admit to himself that some degree of the panic he’d launched himself into while tied to that chair was quite genuine.

He thinks about that blade cutting up under Arthur’s eye, and his stomach convulses, reflexive horror.

“Where’s the car?” he asks.

“Around the back,” Rowan says. “I’d say you’ve got at least three hours before anyone else shows up. Longer, if you’re lucky.”

Eames has never in his life lived by luck and has no intention of starting now.

“You remembered the med kit?” he asks, promptly ignoring the belligerent _of course I did_ rant Rowan throws after him as he hurries back to the room where Arthur is.

He’s been moved to a more comfortable position, probably by the repulsed, reluctant Matko.

 _You are a monster,_ he’d said, and Eames had shrugged it off but it still sort of stings. It was necessary, sometimes, to compartmentalise. How could Matko not see that?

How else had Matko watched them hurting Arthur this whole time, if not by putting his personal feelings aside? He had to have been pretty goddamn horrified, to betray Marić for nothing more than a goodwill price promise.

“Good riddance, Mr Marić,” he salutes to the dead man at the mantelpiece as he reaches down to feel for Arthur’s pulse.

It’s faint, thready. He peers at Arthur’s face, bloodied, bruised.

He thinks, sickly worry like butterflies in his gut, that Arthur might not be as unconscious as he’d hoped.

“Arthur, can you hear me?”

He pats the younger man’s less injured cheek lightly, but there’s no sign of recognition.

“Jesus, what a – how the fuck –”

He loses his words, then, but behind him, Matko picks up on the obvious answer.

“Mr Djokovic pays Marić well for his services. Paid, I should say.”

Eames jumps, startled, turning his head up to see Matko carrying a thin, cottony blanket. Eames takes it quickly, wrapping it around the bulk of Arthur before scooping him up.

“Oh, shit,” he staggers, and Matko rushes around to help, tucking himself under one of Arthur’s arms until he’s suspended between them, the blanket draped over him. “Thanks,” he mutters reluctantly.

Matko doesn’t respond to that, but follows his lead as they drag Arthur as gently as haste dictates out into the hallway.

“Ouch,” Rowan says, whistling at the sight of Arthur as they lay him down flat on the floor. Matko has also produced some clothes, soft linen trousers and a blue, thin jumper, undoubtedly from Djokovic’s drawers.

“And how much does Mr Djokovic pay you, _Matko?”_   Eames asks coolly, just to see the red stain of discomfort in the man’s cheeks.

He’s big shouldered, heavy around the neck and even a little at the gut. His hair is short, cropped close to his scalp, and his eyes are sombre as they flit between Eames and Arthur like he’s not sure who to answer to.

“We do what we must,” he mutters, which does nothing for Eames’ sympathies, but perhaps a little for his respect.

“Yes,” he agrees, stopping to wipe a line of damp blood out from under Arthur’s eyelashes. He can’t quite bring himself to look properly, yet. To take in the full extent of his injuries, although he’s going to have to, and soon. “We do what we must.”

Matko, to his credit, has the good grace to look ashamed.

Eames just tucks Arthur’s chest in close and starts threading his arms through the jumper sleeves as carefully as he can manage.

|*|

The first time Eames won a fight, he was eight years old.

Cameron Hill, a boy in Year Six who liked to throw stones at the monkey bars.

 _Violence isn’t the answer,_ his sister told him, when his dad bought him a bar of chocolate in reward.

|*|

**cadenza | eleven**

It was November, perpetual dusk and the mulch of sodden grass underfoot. Eames stood under the biggest maple tree, barest of shivers.

His cigarette was dangling from between his fingers, the lighter in his other hand, thumb flicking over it, arrhythmic.

The beast of burden inside him, hungry. He stared up at the wet leaves, or what was left of them. Soggy mud squelching under his combat boots and the branches above him, a sheltering threat.

A robin, close by, his red breast puffed outwards and his little head cocked.

“What do you want?” Eames asked him.

The robin only hopped, once, twice, then tipped his curious head the other way, watching on with sentinel steady eyes.

Eames thumbed the ashy end of his cigarette, still warm.

He was cold, he realised with dense apathy. The damp kind of cold, the England kind. He had discovered, some time ago, that he liked other kinds of cold. He liked Scandinavian cold, liked desert cold.

But England cold, he hated it.

“Matty!” a voice called, although, not quite.

That lazy Yorkshire tongue, reducing every _t_ into an accent, transforming his name into a gutteral _Ma’y._

Eames grinned, despite himself. Looked up at Kelvin’s approach.

“Mam’ll kill you if she catches you,” Kelvin said, eyes darting to the cigarette.

Eames smirked, cocking his head, pleased as the robin.

“No, she won’t,” he replied. “She likes me too much.”

Kelvin snorted, pinching both cigarette and lighter for himself.

“Truer words I’ve never heard,” he teased through a dragon cloud of smoke. His cheeks were flushed, eyes dark with tiredness, but he grinned nonetheless. He was standing almost-close.

That’s how it always was. Almosts collected like shells from a beach.

Almost-close, almost-there, almost-not, almost-dead.

“Get out of your head,” Kelvin warned him, somehow dismissive and attentive in one.

 _“Ge’ ou’a yer ‘ed,”_ Eames mocked, tongue in his teeth.

Kelvin laughed, blowing a breath of tar right at Eames’ face.

“You’re getting good,” he said in a rare compliment. “We should ship you off to Hollywood now.”

Eames snorted, hands in his pockets, eyes on their boots caked in cow shit.

Kelvin’s elbow nudged him. A warning, support beam. A cattle prod. Eames felt it like a bruise.

“You know,” Kelvin began, but a voice interrupted them, hostile and charmingly worried.

_“Kelvin Taylor, are you smoking?!”_

Mary, the all mother, her livid accusation. Eames laughed as Kelvin scrunched the cigarette into his hand, cursing at the burn in his palm, singed skin.

“No!” he shouted back, then muttered under his breath, “Jesus, you’d think I was still fourteen, the way she goes on.”

Fist curled at his side and smoke still on his lips, he trudged back up to the house.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of this!” he bellowed over his shoulder.

Eames laughed, only gently. Glanced up at the branches, but the robin was gone.

|*|

**zagreb, croatia**

Arthur doesn’t rouse once as Eames checks him over.

He’s a purple and scar ragdoll, and it’s surprisingly awful to handle his boneless topple of limbs.

Eames tapes up his ribs, mindful of the electrical burns scattered along his side and expends every ounce of his mental energy not thinking about the sound of his scream on that tape, or the way he had looked that one night all those years ago, when he laughed a martini laugh and said,

_“Only if you ask nicely, Mr Eames.”_

Rowan pays them no attention, flitting to and fro about the house, squirreling away all traces of interference from the rooms. Matko helps, awkwardly and obediently, giving Eames a wise, wide berth every time he passes through the hallway.

Sitting back on his heels, Eames glances at his watch.

It’s a fifteen-hour drive to Calais, not accounting for border controls and even the most minimal of rest breaks.

It’ll be a tight twenty-four hours, with an unconscious co-pilot. Not to mention he can feel his face bruising from the blows to his cheek.

“Car’s ready,” Rowan says from the doorway. “I’ll be back home in a few days. Going to lie low in Budapest.”

Childhood eager, his inexperience is finally showing.

Eames stands slowly, brushing down his shirt, hands dirty with blood, Arthur unconscious at his feet.

Matko stands near the stairs, guard dog eyes wary.

“And you?” Eames asks.

Matko opens his mouth, hesitating, and that is all the lacking answer Eames requires.

His gun is hot in hand, the trigger not shy in the slightest.

There’s a _CRACK,_ blood spurts across the cut of the stairs and Matko drops lifeless to the floor.

 _“Mitch!”_ Rowan shouts, horror and hatred, and Eames looks down at Matko’s mostly ruined face staining the floorboards.

 _You are a monster,_ he’d said, and Eames should have replied, _You don’t know the half of it._

“What?” Eames scoffs indignantly, looking back at his cousin’s repulsed expression. “He’d have sold us out to Djokovic in a heartbeat to save his own skin. He only helped us at all because he couldn’t stomach torturing someone who maybe didn’t deserve it.”

Rowan throws him a pained look anyway, his fingernails scratching at his face, scoring red troubled lines into his skin.

“He might not have,” he says with abhorrent naivety.

Eames smirks. To think he’d live to see a son of Max Sampson feeling bad about taking a life.

“Then Djokovic would have killed him. Either way, he was always going to end up dead. This is just more efficient.”

Rowan heaves a great sigh, moving reluctantly to gather up the dead man’s arms and drag him out with the others. As he wrestles with the weight, Rowan says,

“You sounded just like your dad, then.”

He’s wrong, and Eames barely has the capacity to feel smug about it.

Crouching by Arthur’s head, one hand brushing the damp hair off his clammy face, he replies,

“No, I didn’t. I sounded like yours.”

He doesn’t hear Rowan’s response.

Arthur’s eyelids flutter, lazy dry, and his chest stutters between breaths.

The corpses are left in a pile to be found, and Rowan’s barely started wiping fingerprints when Eames takes the car key from him.

They nod to each other, stubborn eye contact over a bloodstained floor.

Eames thinks, maybe, he’s lost Rowan this time.

If nothing else, Max will probably be pleased.

|*|

**MATTHEW | finches that do not charm**

|*|

**coda | third | arthur**

It was summer, wasp stung like the dried-up bird baths and open freezers in the middle of the night. Bees whispering together in the wisteria blossoms, singed petals withering in the sun.

Arthur sat on the couch of the apartment he was renting, a bit too small but so close to the train station that he could hear the rumble of the tracks in the early mornings, before the city sounds took over.

He was not long back from another shitstorm job, courtesy of one Dominick Cobb.

“I will see you next month,” he had said to Cobb before turning on his heel and marching towards his gate in the airport.

Cobb had called something after him, but Arthur hadn’t listened.

Now, sitting in his cramped, sweltering apartment, Arthur regretted his hasty departure, if only because he had nowhere to direct his excess of irritated anger.

He tried not to show too much ill will to Cobb, these days; tried always to remind himself of the sound of his cracked voice over the long-distance call, that awful _she’s dead, she’s gone, she’s gone_ that fizzled through the crackling white noise _._

It was hard, though, when Cobb insisted on being such an asshole about his own fucking mistakes.

With a huff, Arthur snapped his laptop shut, picked up the TV remote instead and clicked a little too aggressively through the channels.

Sweat trickled uncomfortably down his back. His windows were cracked open, but it was doing very little for the stuffy air in the room.

Just as he settled on a spaghetti western, the noise drowning out the sounds of the street below, his phone started ringing.

He didn’t recognise the number glaring up at him from his cluttered glass coffee table and knew it could only be one of two people: Tamsin Elliott, or Eames.

Both had left the job pretty hastily, not wanting to bear witness to a debrief with Cobb in his peak temper. That was two days ago now, and payments were yet to go through to either of them.

Neither Tamsin nor Eames were known for their charitable nature and it would be no surprise for either of them to come after Arthur’s hide if he didn’t wire them their fees soon.

Arthur ignored his phone, glowering instead at Lee Van Cleef drawling threats on screen, squinting in the sunshine.

Eventually, the call dropped, only to start up again a moment later.

Annoyed now, Arthur reached over and rejected the call. They would get their money once the heat of the job had cooled down, which they’d have known if they’d stuck around long enough for Arthur to explain as much.

Outside, the noise of the street was relentless, and Arthur heaved a great sigh, turned the TV volume up and got to his feet.

The film’s voices followed him out to the kitchen through the open doors of the apartment, where he stood a little happier at the open fridge, pouring a generous measure of white wine into a large glass. He stood staring at the meagre contents of the shelves, sipping his wine with his bare feet cooling on the tiled floor.

Distracted by the sounds of Clint Eastwood and the rumble of the street, it took far too long for Arthur to recognise another, much closer sound.

At first, he thought it was the couple downstairs arguing again.

Then, there was a clatter-thump of sound, much too close, and Arthur whipped around. He dropped his glass on the counter and hastened silently to his front door.

Foolishly, without a thought for his exposed arms or his bare feet, Arthur reached for the handle, his other hand lingering at his glock on the cabinet next to him.

No sooner had the door cracked open than he was surprised by a cracking shout of a deep voice, followed by two large, entangled bodies toppling through the doorway.

Arthur leapt back, barely missed as two men landed hard on his carpet, their fists flying and their voices hissing and grunting.

One was wearing dark clothes, half his face covered, steel boots kicking at his opponent’s shins.

His opponent, to Arthur’s astonishment, was Eames.

Even as he recognised him, Eames let out a loud, pained shout, his hands blocking the swipe of a blade in his attacker’s hand.

Arthur slammed the door shut behind them, his heart racing and he raised his glock but the men were already rolling away and where moments ago there had been the anonymous man’s head, there was now Eames’ upper back.

Arthur cast his gun aside, not wanting to risk a shot even at such close range, just as the man cried out, his wrist cracking horribly in Eames’ grip, causing him to drop his knife.

Arthur snatched the blade up before either man could roll into it, darting out of the way of several hard kicks. Spinning back, he watched in alarm as Eames hauled the man up, arms hooked around the man’s elbows, exposing his chest.

“Arthur!” Eames gasped, breathless, and quick as his thoughts could snap to, Arthur buried the blade into the stranger’s heart.

Blood seeped over his hand, the man jerked in Eames’ hold and when Eames let go, he dropped to the carpet with an ugly, sprawling thud.

“You’ve ruined my carpet,” Arthur said, frowning at the scarlet stains spreading across his landing.

Eames, kneeling on the floor with a nasty gash on his forearm, a bruised mouth and more blood oozing through his shirt near his ribcage, glared up at him.

“Answer your bloody phone next time, will you?” he grunted thickly, breathing hard.

Arthur turned his frown to Eames, looking over with appraising scrutiny.

He looked very much like he hadn’t slept since the job. His sea-storm eyes were hard and bloodshot, and he was stooping slowly around the injury in his side.

“Why are you here?” Arthur asked, just to see Eames’ eyes widen.

“I was coming to enquire about payment,” he said, which was probably true. “I ran into this fine fellow and his partner on my way.”

At this, Arthur narrowed his eyes further.

“Have you left a dead body in my hallway?”

Eames rolled his eyes, lifting his slashed arm up to inspect the knife wound. It wasn’t terribly deep, but it was long, and the skin was torn horribly. He hissed, pressing at the deepest part of it, before slowly unpeeling his shirt to reveal a much deeper, shorter wound in his side.

Actually, it looked rather disconcertingly like a stab wound.

“Eames,” Arthur said impatiently. “Have you left a dead body –”

“Christ Almighty,” Eames snapped, “No, alright? I dropped him in one of the skips behind the building next door.”

“Oh _Eames,”_ Arthur groaned, kneeling awkwardly over the dead man’s body to slap his hands away and inspect the injury for himself. “I live here. This is my home.”

“Oh, I’m _terribly sorry,_ Arthur,” Eames sneered, squirming under Arthur’s cautious prodding of his side. “I’ll let the assassin give it a go first, next time, shall I?”

Arthur ignored him in favour of shredding away the bloodied shirt, mopping up as much of the wound as he could while Eames dropped his weight back onto his heels, sighing.

“When are you paying me?” he asked, then, and Arthur huffed a laugh.

“Never you mind,” he said, grinning. “Come on, I’ve got stuff in the bathroom. I’ll stitch you up, and then, well.”

They looked at the corpse lying beside them, still oozing crimson into Arthur’s once perfectly decent carpet. Despite himself, Arthur glowered at Eames again.

“You’re helping me get rid of this,” he said sternly, to which Eames shrugged.

“You’re very welcome, darling,” he replied, allowing Arthur to help pull him to his unsteady feet.

Together, they shuffled into Arthur’s bathroom, the sounds of Clint Eastwood and gunshots still ringing from the living room. Eames’ weight was heavy, and Arthur rather thought he was being much too cheerful for someone missing at least half a pint of blood already.

“Eames,” Arthur said, once Eames was settled half-comfortably on the closed lid of the toilet seat, leaning back against the cistern with his eyes closed.

“Hmph?” Eames grunted in response, mouth twitching.

“Did you know they were coming for me?” he asked, very quietly, running his bloody fingers under the hot tap at the sink. The porcelain was brownish pink with residue, stains of Eames running over his hands. “Is that why you came in person?”

Behind him, Eames made a sleepy, pained sound.

“Why the hell would I do a thing like that? I need money, Arthur. I have a gambling addiction to maintain,” he said, which wasn’t an answer at all.

Arthur grinned, just a little. Dried his hands, pulled out his first aid kit, and got to work.

|*|

**b road, europe**

By the time they get on the road, the day has slipped away from between Eames’ clutched fingers.

He had, somewhat naively, thought that within the hour he’d be able to get Arthur patched up and sleeping easy in the back of the car, giving him the time and space to drive for at least the first six hours uninterrupted. Enough, at least, to make a dent in their journey.

He’s got less than a day to get to Calais.

He’d expected the bumps and bruises, anticipated a belligerent and violently disgruntled Arthur who would berate him for his tardy idiocy all the long day. He’d _prepared_ himself for that.

What he hadn’t factored in, being the sunny ray of optimism that he is, was that they would drug Arthur within an inch of heart failure.

Unable to give him anything for the pain for fear of sending him into a coma, Eames had had to stitch up the incredibly deep cut in his face with nothing more than soft words of encouragement, fully aware that it was more than likely that Arthur was fully conscious, trapped by the drugs, and therefore probably freaking the fuck out at having Eames bringing a needle so close to his eye.

Then there had been the thorough and horribly necessary check for broken bones.

It was impossible to tell if any damage had been done to Arthur’s spine, so Eames had simply had to hope for the best and assume that no awkward looking angles meant good news.

With the immediate issues taken care of, Eames had with Rowan’s snarling, resentful help gotten Arthur in the back of the car and out of Zagreb’s city limits before the end of the working day, happy in the knowledge that Arthur was almost certainly in a natural state of unconsciousness and quite free of drugs.

Only, less than an hour into the journey, Arthur had come to, retching and yelping, and promptly vomited a lot of stomach lining into the footwell of the car.

Now, at close to ten at night, already on their second car, Arthur’s flinching and jerking, soft whimpers escaping him as his legs twitch under the blanket where he’s lying along the backseat.

Eames eyes him in the rear-view mirror worriedly.

“Arthur,” he says quietly, to no response other than a more obvious flinch. “Oh, hell,” he mutters.

The road is dotted with layovers every few miles, has been for over an hour. It only takes a few minutes to reach the next one and Eames pulls in swiftly, just in time for Arthur’s breathing to pick up.

He has an unfortunate habit of rubbing his face in his sleep, threatening the downright artistry of Eames’ stitchwork with every twitch. Eames gets out quickly, the cold air slapping him hard, and he opens the back door near Arthur’s head just in time to grab his hands before they can dig into his cheeks.

“Sh, sh, sh,” he says. “No, that’s it, no. You’re ok. Wake up.”

Arthur’s not really been _waking up_ so much as opening his eyes to blink owlishly at Eames with alarmingly little recognition.

Eames isn’t an expert on the pathological effects of sleep deprivation, but he thinks recovering his sleep must be taking its toll on Arthur’s body. He’s pastier even than he was back in Zagreb, when Marić’s men dragged him into the room to be laid bare for Eames’ torment.

Under careful ministrations, Arthur’s eyes crack open, swollen and bleary. Red-rimmed and damp, they are still that same bright shade of hazel, and it’s unexpectedly comforting to see.

Eames smiles at him cautiously, just like every other time.

And, just like every other time, Arthur flinches, fussing like a toddler as he fidgets and wriggles out from under Eames’ hands. The sounds of worry cut out of him in shards of vowels that are probably supposed to be threats of bodily harm.

Eames pushes his hair back off his damp forehead.

“We’ve got a long way to go, pet,” he says, a little brusque. “Here, can you drink something?”

He cracks open a new water bottle. Miraculously, Arthur gets a whole sip and a half in between his pouting shudders.

He’s not developed a fever yet, but there’s miles to go and hours to survive and it will be a miracle if he doesn’t succumb before they reach the sea.

At least they’ve passed into the German border already, with its trustworthy roads and a language Eames can actually speak passably.

Rowan’s map is folded out across the front passenger seat. They’ve got well over ten hours of driving left by his calculated route, which is fine, which _should_ be fine. Provided they don’t have to stop every fifty miles for two sips of water at a time.

This is hardly the first time Eames has wanted to drug Arthur just to keep him quiet, but it is the first time the very idea makes him sick to his stomach for even thinking it.

Arthur’s shivering loudly, and he looks awfully young, tucked under that blanket with his rumple-curl hair sticking to his forehead.

Eames double checks his watch. Ten past ten.

The sky isn’t entirely dark yet; the stars are angry.

With a short, lung sharp sigh, he nudges his way into the backseat, resting Arthur’s head on the meat of his thigh and keeping the door open, so that cool air flows in easier than through the cracked window.

He leans back, eyes closed, a headache pinching around his eyes. It’s been hours since he heard from Rowan, promptly tossing his phone, half of it out of the window and the other half in the bin of a McDonald’s at a rest stop hours ago. These are always the loneliest moments, between stopping places.

The roads might be clear, or they might be full of enemies. Perhaps he is running from nothing, or perhaps Djokovic already knows his best Mr Marić has failed him.

Perhaps when he gets to Calais, Max will have lied and there won’t be a place on the boat at all.

Eames scrubs his face of sleep. No, he can’t think like that.

Max wouldn’t have bothered to call if he wasn’t going to follow through. He wouldn’t have let his youngest child go gallivanting off across Europe for nothing.

He might think Eames is about as much of a disappointment as his father was, but he’s still family, however thin those threads have unravelled to by now.

Eames tongues his back teeth absently, one by one, frowning at the corner of the map he can read from his seat. His hand absently strokes across Arthur’s brow, and is still doing so when a rough, incredibly quiet voice whispers,

“Eames?”

Eames flinches, glancing down to see Arthur’s eyes looking up at him, peering through his lashes with far more intent than anything Eames has seen all day.

He smiles a little hopefully and says,

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Arthur opens his mouth, then coughs, rolling over to Eames’ knees and retching, although nothing comes out this time.

Eames catches him, barely, and slowly helps him up to an almost sitting position. He’s shaky and weak, but he seems mostly lucid as he takes in his surroundings.

The car, the seats, the windows, the blanket. And Eames, sitting very, very still, watching him for signs of collapse, or maybe rage.

Arthur stares at him, rapid blinks; winces when he reaches up to press ever so gently into the patched up cut in his eye.

“Sorry,” Eames says, and it sounds even lamer than he thought it would.

Arthur gives an apathetic jerk of one shoulder, too tired even to do both.

“Thanks,” he says, breath of sorrow like a lonely magpie. Then, “You came to get me.”

Eames refuses to be insulted by the insinuation, if only because, unfortunately, Arthur has every right to be surprised. Eames is still a little surprised, to be entirely honest with himself, which he rarely is.

He reaches over to take Arthur’s arm. The flinch is involuntary and is immediately followed by Arthur leaning heavily into Eames’ grip, as if in apology for the slight. It’s really quite discomfiting, this pliant, gentle Arthur.

“Have some water,” he says, lifting up the water bottle again and not even bothering to dignify Arthur’s refusal of help with a response.

He’s weak as a toddler like this; if he drops it down himself he’ll need to get changed again and Eames really doesn’t have the patience for it right now. Arthur seems to realise Eames is unprepared to budge, because he eventually just places his clumsy, clammy hands around Eames’ and helps, or rather pretends to help, as he takes tiny, tilting sips of water.

“You should lie down,” Eames says as he screws the lid back on. “Get some sleep. We’re not even halfway there yet.”

“Halfway where?” Arthur says, slightly less rusty than before.

He reaches up for his eye again and Eames bats his hand away as hard as he dares.

“I will get you a dog cone,” he warns, to which Arthur almost smiles. It turns quickly into a scowl, which if nothing else is at least reassuring that the usual, reliably grumpy Arthur is still in there somewhere. “Never you mind. Just rest. You’ve had a shit few – days?”

Arthur’s brow scrunches up at his question mark expression, sliding down in the seat to lie flat.

“Don’t look at me,” he says, clearing his throat and blinking sleepily. “It could be November for all I know.”

That is less than reassuring, and Eames means to tell Arthur this.

Only, his eyes flutter closed, his hand on Eames’ leg, and he looks, for the first time, almost peaceful.

He takes Arthur’s fingers, lightly squeezing them, before he slides out from underneath his grip. He closes the car door as softly as he can, stretching one last time before clambering back into the driver’s seat.

Cracking open another energy drink, which he gulps down with a shudder of disgust, Eames shakes out his ringing ears and stiff fingers before easing back out onto the less than busy road.

There’s only one more border crossing to go, anyway, and that’s the most important bit.

He gives Arthur one last look in the rear-view, fast asleep and cheeks pink, then returns his gaze to the stretching road ahead, the night sky above rich with starshine.

|*|

**cadenza | one**

It was January, burnt sand starlit by the scouring ocean breeze. Salty faces and laboured shoulders.

The job was delayed, owing to an extractor with a shoddy passport and a history of smuggling.

Eames tried not to preen too much about his superior document forging skills. Arthur saw right through him, of course, despite the fact they hadn’t worked together for almost a year by then.

They started planning as best they could.

Rather, _Arthur_ started planning.

Eames took the time to design some new forgeries. He was still a little raw from his last job, still shaking off little Damon Foley’s nervous, six-year-old’s habits.

It had been ugly, that one. Unexpectedly so.

So, Arthur planned, as points do, and Kelly built as architect’s do and Eames took himself under and relearned the lines of his favourite faces before creating some more to play with.

Every day at exactly two-thirty, they had lunch together. Street food in shiny sticky cartons, excess of thin paper napkins and plastic cutlery that always snapped with the weight of more than half a mouthful.

They sat outside on benches and ate food and talked about meaningless things in that revealing tone of something akin to comfort.

Three people who knew each other, were aware of each other. Their habits, their foibles.

It was January, but Kelly wore bikinis under her desert thin dresses and Arthur got a bit sunburnt on his forehead and Eames spent an hour every evening standing shirtless in the waves, waiting for a shark to steal him under.

One day, after lunch, Arthur followed Eames into his dream.

“By the grace of my impeccable control, are you alive,” he drawled at Arthur from across the room.

It was a gallery bedecked with mirrors and oil paintings, like a gilded funhouse.

Arthur stood in front of a Cezanne, looking for all the world like he painted it.

Eames was wearing a new skin. Very dark and stretched tight over a broad frame, broader than his own.

Arthur cocked his head to the side, figuring him out, discerning, slightly south of judgemental.

“He’s good,” he said after a moment. “Does it feel strange, being so tall?”

Eames ignored the jibe, though he hesitated long enough to enjoy the tiny smile that dimpled Arthur’s cheeks at his own wit. He turned back to his mirror but could only see his own face reflected back.

Dark hazel eyes and reddish-brown hair and a thin, angular –

 _No._ He closed his eyes. No, that wasn’t his face, not at all.

A mumbling sound, panther purr rumbles in the fuzzy air behind him.

Arthur was talking again.

Eames ignored him.

He opened his eyes and stared back into his own face. Eyes blue-not-blue and hair dark gold and face drawn heavy with a beard pretending to be scruff.

Arthur stood closer, cautious steps like nervous cattle.

“Eames?” he pressed, like he’d said it already. Said it enough to push past annoyed and into disconcerted.

Eames found him in the mirror, that tiny frown in his forehead and his eyes tight at the corners.

His calculator face.

“Yes?” Eames asked, hint of impatience, like he was irritated by the interruption.

Arthur bought it, of course. It was incredible, really, how easily Arthur believed himself to be a nuisance. He must have thought better of his real question, because he asked,

“What’s his name?”

Eames suddenly realised he was still wearing the new forge; that he was more than a head taller than Arthur and significantly broader. He looked down at himself, his large hands smooth, stubby nails and wide thumbs.

“I haven’t a clue,” he replied honestly. “I don’t usually give them names if they’re not real.”

Arthur seemed surprised by that.

He searched Eames’ face, perhaps for some evidence of a lie.

“How come they feel real, then, when they’re incomplete?”

Eames shrugged one weighty shoulder, testing the boundary of movement. An old injury, he decided; stiff, a ligament or two torn up in a football scuffle.

“If they’re too complete, they start to feel fake,” he explained casually, rotating his arm and feeling for the injury.

Maybe the not-really-football. _American_ football. Rugby for wimps. He continued,

“You don’t ever know or remember the names of the vast majority of people you meet. Half the marks give me names without even realising they’re doing it.”

For some unfathomable reason, Arthur looked abruptly sad. That kicked puppy frown of his, the one he usually reserved for getting shouted at by his precious Mr Cobb.

Eames turned back to his own reflection, the muddy copper tint to his hair. He blinked, lazy calm, and was replaced entirely with the forge.

“He looks like a Lawrence,” Arthur said, thoughtful, hinting at careless, as if he hadn’t meant to speak at all.

Eames blinked, and the forge held steady, but his reflection snapped back to his own, cold fury, confusion.

“What?” he asked and what was so much worse than that thoughtfully careless comment was the way Arthur stammered over a response, like he _knew_ why Eames wouldn’t like that.

Caught in the lie, caught in the truth.

“I mean – I don’t – what?”

Eames, speechless, stared at him, unable to verbalise the churning embarrassment and hostility waging war in his gut and his face at that name.

Arthur blushed, mouth pressed tight shut, and he turned away hastily.

“If you need – umm, I’ll be topside.”

Then he pulled a gun and shot himself clean out of the dream.

“Bit dramatic,” Eames grunted as he stared at Arthur’s blushing bloody corpse, frowning, heart clenching.

Still, he walked out into a different room of his subconscious and dreamed for another six hours uninterrupted.

He scrapped the forge.

He wasn’t interested in making more Lawrences. His father had been more than enough.

Although, how Arthur knew that, Eames didn’t ever want to find out.

|*|

**b road, europe**

Eames stops three times to sleep. Braves a fifteen-minute nap the first time, a twenty-five minute one the second time.

The third time, he sleeps for almost forty minutes before he’s woken up by Arthur gasping and tumbling off the backseat, into the footwell. He jerks awake at the scrambling, panting sounds Arthur makes as he claws back up onto the seat, his breaths getting louder and louder as the panic sets in.

“Arthur,” Eames says, not even getting out of the car, just clambering over the backs of the seats to reach him.

Arthur’s panicking, the air getting closer and closer, his hands getting frantic as he tries to slap Eames away, tries to force in more breath than his taxed lungs can cope with.

“Arthur, it’s alright,” Eames says, too loudly, too harshly.

It makes him flinch even worse than before. Makes him cry out and squeeze his eyes tight, straining the stitches in his face.

He’s backed up against one of the windows, shaking so violently he can’t even grab hold of Eames as he grasps in his direction.

“Pl – pl –” he tries and fails and Eames categorically will not survive hearing Arthur _beg,_ so he just crowds him in close, making shushing sounds and taking gentle hold of his wrists, manipulating him into his grip like a writhing, belligerent cat.

Arthur lets out another cry as he gives in to Eames’ pull, shaking his head and curling his legs up between them, forcing some meagre distance between their chests.

“I know,” Eames lies, thumbs stroking the insides of his wrists, where his pulse is rapid and strong. “We’re almost there. We’re nearly there. I’m sorry. We’re nearly there, now.”

“Wh – wh – wh –” Arthur stutters, mouthing twisting around all the questions trying to burst out of him.

Eames waits until he’s managed to get in another breath before he answers.

“Calais, pet. We’re going to Calais.”

“Wh – wh – wh –” he tries again and this time, it almost makes Eames laugh.

He shifts his weight, tugging Arthur closer, awkward limbs, all elbows and knees as tears of fright cling to his eyelashes and he shivers.

“We’re getting a boat,” Eames says reluctantly. “Calais to Dover,” he says.

At first, he’s not sure Arthur heard him at all. He pushes his wet, clammy face into Eames’ neck and trembles, every piece of his body frozen solid, muscles clenched magnetic. It must be exhausting.

Even after sleeping so much, Eames can’t help but think how knackered Arthur must be.

They’re in a car park, a far corner away from the fast food restaurants that even in the shimmer of dawn are already busy. There are mostly huge trucks around them, a few cars and family vehicles. Eames has parked tucked out of sight behind a line of HGVs.

He should probably buy some more provisions before he sets off again.

He rocks a little, side to side, as Arthur slowly, piece by piece, calms down. First his ripped paper breaths, then his trembling hands, then his legs, and finally his shoulders, until he’s lying perfectly still in Eames’ hold. He feels uncomfortably small, and Eames tries hard not to think about it too much.

They wait another five minutes in silence before Arthur pulls back. Eames loosens his hands, allowing Arthur to extract himself as slowly as he needs.

Eventually, he’s sitting next to him, legs still tucked between them. He’s got hold of one of Eames’ forearms, like a tether, skin to skin.

Finally, he takes a slow, deep breath and says, frowning,

“You can’t go to Dover.”

Eames raises his eyebrows in his best _don’t tell me what to do_ face, the one that on any other day would make Arthur scowl at him, maybe give him a lecture on his attitude. In the silky grey light of the cloudy morning, though, Arthur doesn’t even acknowledge it.

“Says who?” Eames asks.

 _“Eames,”_ Arthur sighs, tiredly. “You can’t.”

It’s about as close as Arthur’s ever dared get to admitting how thorough his background check on Eames was, in those early days, when they didn’t know each other.

Then again, they still don’t really _know_ each other, do they? Not like Arthur knows Cobb, not like Eames knows, well. Someone, surely.

“Don’t worry about it, Arthur,” Eames says. “How are you feeling?”

Arthur laughs, then. A tiny hop-skip sound, sarcastic, almost caustic.

“Peachy,” he replies, then leans back against the window.

He lets go of Eames’ arm, too, and Eames misses the warmth instantly. He looks at Arthur’s face, eyes closed, face pressed bruising against the foggy window.

Reluctantly, trying his very best not to sound in the least bit bitter, he says,

“I’ll call Cobb, if that’s what you want.”

For a moment, it seems Arthur isn’t going to respond.

Eames sighs quietly, groaning as he shifts over the seats to climb out of the car, wallet in hand and trying not to think about how unappealing a McDonald's is at six in the morning.

Before he can close the door, Arthur replies, so quietly Eames almost thinks he wasn’t supposed to hear it.

“Why the hell would I want you to do that?”

Eames hasn’t the faintest clue why that pleases him so much.

He turns away, air chilly in his lungs, to hide his grin, just in case Arthur sees it.

|*|

Eames was dishonourably discharged from the Royal Marines when he was twenty-two years old.

The sun was frosty and bright, and he cried for the first time in almost three years.

The relief was overwhelming.

|*|

**the channel, north sea**

Lizelle Berger is not, in fact, a code phrase as Eames had assumed, but an actual person.

They get to Calais with barely an hour to spare. Arthur has thrown up more times in the past twelve hours than Eames has done in the last decade and is suffering far more than he’s admitting to by the time they reach the docks.

Eames had planned on dumping the car and getting a taxi the last few miles, but by then Arthur is barely clinging to consciousness and the idea of trying to explain his state to a taxi driver – a _French one,_ at that – is about as appealing as turning around and driving all the way back to Zagreb.

They reach the docks, making for customs even as Eames’ eyelids droop. He’s on his seventeenth can of red bull, which is seventeen more cans than he had ever hoped to consume in his lifetime.

“I need to speak to Lizelle Berger,” he says, or perhaps slurs, before realising himself and asking again in French.

At least, he hopes it’s French. Arthur is sleeping, thank the Lord. All Eames has to hope is that it’ll last until they’re on the goddamn ferry.

Lizelle Berger arrives, and not only is she real, but she’s about twenty years younger than she has any right to be.

Christ, she looks younger than Rowan.

Her hair is a neat, nutty brown and her face is soft, dotted with beauty spots.

“No car,” she says, and has the good grace to look apologetic, and the guts to get angry when Eames shouts at her. “You will cross this channel at my will,” she spits, eyeing him distrustfully. She’s wearing an orange high-vis jacket over a thick black coat.

“Please, come on, _look_ at him for Christ’s sake,” Eames says, still sitting in the driver’s seat.

Lizelle gives Arthur a cursory glance through the window, then returns her steely gaze to Eames.

“I can give you a pillow?” she offers, and Eames might think she was joking if she didn’t look so ruddy furious.

They don’t bring the car.

Arthur is barely conscious as they board the ferry, feet sliding over the ground with every step, lungs labouring awfully. Eames takes some of his weight with an arm around his waist, two bags slung over his shoulder.

A young man and woman eye them suspiciously at first as he drops Arthur into an end seat of a back row, right up until Arthur, jerking awake in surprise, starts coughing violently, great wracking coughs that make him cling weakly to Eames’ collar.

“Excuse me?” the woman says, a delightfully familiar accent and a creased brow. Eames turns around to grump at her, too, but she’s holding a paper cup and a bottle of water. “Can I help, at all? I got you a water, and a ginger tea.”

Lord bless all Mancunians, Eames thinks to himself, then takes the water first.

“Thanks,” he replies with a gentle Belfast lilt. “That’s grand.”

The young woman smiles.

“Is he ok?”

“He’ll be fine,” Eames says. “Caught a bug just in time for the journey home. Fell down the stairs yesterday and hit the concrete like you would not _believe,_ daft sod. Lucky I remembered the health insurance, eh?”

“Greg did the same on the way over,” she says, nodding to her partner who’s still at the bar, tapping his credit card against his palm and chatting with the man beside him. “I’m Molly.”

Molly, it turns out, has some kind of magical ability to soothe traumatised point men.

Or at least, that’s what Eames takes from all this.

She sits in front of Eames and Arthur for the whole journey, turning to chat about their holidays in France and her job at Manchester Met every now and then, while her boyfriend Greg doodles his way through sudokus, and Arthur sleeps pretty solidly for the entire journey, leaning entirely into Eames and playing the part of the poor sick boyfriend very well indeed.

Eames for his part is about as patient as he is able.

He tells Molly about their charming holiday home in Brest and how he’s been going to France on holiday every year since he was a child; how yes, he does speak French very well, but his accent is terrible, and how long he’s lived in Devon and how much he loves the seaside.

His eyes rest on every crew member in turn for the entire journey, but nobody so much as glances his way.

England looms closer, those white cliffs approaching, and Eames can feel his heartrate pick up with every tilting dip of the sea bringing them nearer and nearer.

He puts his arm around Arthur, and he tells himself it’s for Arthur’s sake, but that’s mostly a lie because the truth is he feels more like _he_ could stop breathing any moment, too.

Molly and Greg bicker about a tricky sudoku and Arthur twitches in his sleep and Eames swallows dryly, praying to a God that’s long forsaken him that the very ground of Great Britain won’t split apart beneath his feet when he steps on dry land.

“Eames?” Arthur whispers, flinching inwards, quiet enough that only Eames can hear it.

“Almost there,” he whispers under the guise of kissing Arthur’s temple, and Arthur to his credit doesn’t react.

“You came to get me,” he murmurs, and Eames thinks he’s going to be hearing that one for the rest of his life, however short a life it may turn out to be.

|*|

Eames committed his first common law offence when he was eleven years old.

 _Was your father with you the whole time on this day?_ The police constable asked in that kind-stern-needy voice.

 _Yes,_ Eames replied. _Yes, yes, yes._

|*|

**dover, england**

When he isn’t immediately seized at the border, Eames takes a deep gulp of Kent air and nearly chokes on the salty relief of it.

Arthur’s pretty solidly asleep on his feet. Eames keeps tight hold of him around the waist, eyeing the taxi rank with interest.

He’s got a wallet and a purse in his pockets and he doubts very much Molly and Greg will suspect him, given he was visibly preoccupied the entire journey.

Half their cash is euros, but in a separate fold in Molly’s purse are three tightly folded twenty-pound notes.

He sends another apologetic blessing to all Mancunians and hopes for the best.

“Right, come on,” he says with resolve, tugging Arthur along to the nearest cab.

“Where to?” the gangly driver says, leaning against the driver’s side door with a cigarette dangling between his skinny fingers.

“Hotel,” Eames replies, swinging open the door and coaxing Arthur inside with difficulty. One leg, then the other, lots of encouraging hums. “Any, don’t care.”

The driver nods, spits into the drain in the road and drops his cig in after.

“Actually,” Eames changes his mind, nudging the driver’s arm. “Not a bloody Travelodge, alright?”

The driver chuckles, giving him a little salute.

“Roger that,” he agrees, but before he can step inside his car, they’re interrupted by a loud, enthusiastic voice.

“Mitch? Is that you?”

Eames freezes where he stands, half-buckling under Arthur’s weight, and momentarily considers ignoring her.

The driver’s looking at him with an odd, expectant surprise, and that voice again.

“Jesus, Mitch. It’s good to see you.”

Eames glances upwards to look directly at a woman he is mostly certain he has never met in his life.

“Look, I don’t –” he says coolly, hoping at the very least she won’t get out the handcuffs right here in the open.

She’s short, with a skinny face surrounded by a mane of thick black hair, wearing a puffy winter jacket despite the mild weather.

“Oh, gosh, you probably don’t remember me. Why would you?” the woman scoffs.

She’s surprisingly good, blushing appropriately and looking down at her feet in an embarrassed squirm.

Then again, Max’s spooks were always good.

“It’s Kitty. I went to school with your sister.”

The taxi driver makes an impatient sound, tapping the roof of his car.

“Mate, are you in or not? Plenty of other people with places to go.”

Before Eames can come up with an excuse, before he can do anything other than tighten his grip on Arthur’s waist, eliciting the tiniest of groans from the younger man, the woman, Kitty replies breezily,

“He’s fine. I’ve got a car, I can give you a lift.”

The driver huffs audibly, gesturing to a group down the queue for them to hop in. They bustle around them into the car and somehow amidst the confusion he ends up leaning against a telephone pole with his arm around Arthur and the unwelcome Kitty holding both of his bags.

“Come on, Mitch. I’ll save you a few quid,” she says. “Car’s just along here.”

And with that she’s walking away.

Eames does, for his part, consider running. He watches that mane of black curls bounce away and, though lamenting the drugs inside one of his bags slung over her shoulder, he knows he could get more. He could call Yusuf, Favour Forty-Whatever, and have someone there within a few hours at most.

Only, then she gives him a dancing look over her shoulder, full of knowledge and expectancy. It’s a look that says, _It’s me or them._

Eames has had that look before. He’s caved under its might, folded like paper then come out crumpled and torn on the other side.

Shifting Arthur’s arm up over his shoulder, he holds his breath and says, gently,

“Thanks for nothing, Uncle Max.”

Arthur’s feet scrape along the pavement, barely lifted, but at least he’s sort of walking by himself. He blinks long, heavy blinks, lips folded in over his teeth as if to bite in his opinions for the first time in his life.

Kitty trots quickly towards the short stay car park, soon reaching a large maroon people carrier.

She chucks the bags in the front seat and opens the back door.

When Eames reaches the car, she gestures towards Arthur, as if she honestly thinks he’ll let her help. As if she thinks he is going to let her touch him of his own volition.

“Hmph,” she snorts, before proceeding to stand with her hands on her hips and watch far too closely as Eames struggles to help Arthur slide along the seats, wincing and grumbling with his eyes half closed.

Eames isn’t even entirely sure he’s lucid anymore, can’t tell if he even realises they’ve been had.

He thinks probably not. If he’d noticed, he’d have said something smarmy about Eames’ poor decisions.

Even on his deathbed, Eames reckons Arthur would enjoy the opportunity to gloat over his poor decisions. Not even death could stop Arthur enjoying a good old fashioned _I told you so._

Kitty drums her fingers on the steering wheel, waiting patiently until both her passengers are buckled in before even turning over the engine. This at the very least feels reassuring. It seems unlikely she’s under orders to scatter their body parts across the cliffs of Dover if she’s bothered about road safety.

They drive for two minutes in silence, along roads that skirt around Dover’s periphery in a vague, looping circle.

At the first red light, Kitty lets out a tired little sigh. A soft sound, like a mother or a child.

“I’ve got you a double room at a hotel,” she says, her eyes creased at the edges as they dart to Arthur, who’s lying with his head tilted back, sweat peppering his exposed throat like it’s bursting at the seams.

Eames raises a single, disbelieving eyebrow.

“Why’s that?” he asks coolly. “Maximillian want to be here himself, does he?”

Kitty frowns, then.

“Of course not,” she replies.

Eames stares at her eyes in the rear-view mirror, their almond shape cut with clear lines of black, mascara heavy on her lashes.

Outside, Dover sinks into its Saturday evening. The sky is blue and bronze, sea kissed, and the sun penetrates the clouds low on the horizon.

The light changes, amber, green. Kitty drives on, and Arthur leans a little heavier into Eames as he shivers, his hands tucked under his armpits.

“Arthur,” Eames says, as quietly as he dares.

Arthur makes another of those obscure _listening-not-listening_ sounds.

“Arthur, wake up,” Eames says, his hand scooped around the back of his neck.

Arthur’s head lolls to the side. The cut in his cheek is livid red at the edges.

In the rear-view, Kitty’s eyes are dark and attentive, flicking between the road and the men behind her. She says something that sounds an awful lot like _concern,_ which any other day of the week might make Eames laugh but now it just makes him feel sick.

He unbuckles their seatbelts, ignoring Kitty’s squawk, and taps lightly at the uninjured side of Arthur’s face.

“Jesus Christ. Arthur, don’t you dare die on me. I will never in my _life_ forgive you, do you hear me? I am not telling Cobb I killed his puppy.”

“Mitch. Mitch. Matthew, he needs –”

“Don’t you fucking tell me what he needs,” Eames snarls, refusing to look at her, refusing to hear. Refusing to believe the pasty, colourless look to Arthur, to every part of him except that nasty fucking slice in his face. “He is not your concern; do you understand me? He is _mine._ You can take me wherever you damn well please, but this has nothing to do with him.”

The car speeds up a little, and Kitty makes a breathy, scoffing sound.

“I thought it was all about him?” she asks in a dry, amused tone.

Jesus H. Christ, but this woman, she’ll be the death of him whether she kills him or not.

“He wasn’t even there!” Eames shouts, holding Arthur’s throat in tender hands, feeling for pulse that’s faint, a trembling under his clammy skin. “We hadn’t even met then, fuck, are you _serious?”_

Kitty doesn’t respond to that one.

Eames can feel his heart blocking his airway. He can still hear, like a crackled vinyl, Arthur’s voice in that recorder. His panicked, squashed fear. His steely anger and that scream, that _scream,_ the stuff of nightmares.

His breaths are hoarse, that scream of their own, loud in his ears.

Buildings flurry past the windows on either side and the sun is a rich, scalding gold and Arthur might die in the back of a car on the way to their execution and this was _not_ how it was supposed to go.

Eames tongues the roof of his mouth like he might throw up and he wonders, lungs heavy in his chest, if Rowan knew about this.

“Please, please, please,” he whispers.

And then, quite suddenly, the car comes to a stop.

Eames’ face, so close to Arthur’s he can almost taste the sour sweat on his skin. He frowns, looking away and through the windscreen.

They’re at a Premier Inn. A big one, by the looks of it.

Kitty climbs out, bringing their bags with them and opening the door.

Eames doesn’t move. As far as he’s concerned, he’s as limp as a boned fish, same as Arthur, if that’s how they’re going to play it.

There’s no room for dignity now, not when Eames has gotten them both killed without even doing anything this time.

Their captor must see the resolution in his eyes because she rolls her eyes and drops their bags, fishing in her pockets. She makes a huffing, disapproving sound, this girlish woman with kind eyes and thin, bony hands.

Only, Kitty, she doesn’t pull out a gun, or a badge, or a wallet. She takes out two little plastic rectangles from an inside pocket, and her car key.

“If you really don’t think you need my help, then just take it and I’ll be off. The room’s only been paid for one night so if you want to stay longer you’ll need to sort that out with the reception – it’s booked in my name so you’ll need a new booking, which I wouldn’t advise if you want to stay under the radar. The car’s still under my name but as long as you don’t get pulled over for speeding, you shouldn’t have a problem. I won’t need it, so just text Poppy wherever you leave it and I’ll find a way to get it back.”

Eames stares at her little hand, holding out the items. She shakes them, like a threat that she’ll drop them if he doesn’t accept.

When still he doesn’t reach out, she sighs and puts them in his lap.

“I hope you’ve got antibiotics in your bags, because that’s one touch away from being infected,” she says, nodding to Arthur’s face.

“What do you mean?” Eames asks, can’t quite find the words he wants as he stares, dumbstruck at her.

Kitty pulls an impatient, scowling expression.

“Are you deaf? He’ll get an infection! Look at –”

“No, _no,”_ Eames splutters. “The other bit.”

“What other bit? The car? Well it’s an old one, but I hadn’t gotten rid of it yet. Always handy to have an extra car around if you can, isn’t it? Not sure if the MOT’s up to date, actually, so you might want to be careful. She runs fine though.”

She gives the open car door a fond little pat, like it’s a beloved family pet.

“Who are you?” Eames asks, feeling more and more lost inside this pit of a rabbit hole he seems to have stumbled into.

The woman laughs, then. Her face lights up and her eyes are bright in the glow of the rapid sunset and she’s beaming as she looks at him.

“I told you. It’s Kitty Wilson. I went to school with your sister.”

Eames stares at her, without the hardness and the terror; really looks at her skinny face and her thick black hair and he realises, yes, he does remember her.

Ever so vague, even less distinct than his own schoolfriends in his mind, but there _had_ been a girl called Kitty Wilson in his sister’s class, at birthday parties and sleepovers and all the other times Eames would avoid the house as best he could.

Kitty Wilson, with her maroon people carrier and her half-cocked smile.

“Kitty,” he says, as if for the first time.

That laugh again, quieter.

“Yes, Mitch. Your sister said you needed help. She did me a solid one a while back when my partner left me and I told her, if I could ever return the favour…and here we are.”

She shrugs, then, with a _no big deal_ in her grin, with a _what did you expect_ in the tilt of her head, the scrunch of her nose.

Something hot and powerful floods Eames, an overwhelming and frightening kind of relief. A gratitude so intense, he has to physically restrain himself from reaching out and hugging the woman. Only Arthur’s weight beside him keeps him where he sits, awestruck and adoring, looking at Kitty Wilson with brand new eyes.

“Poppy called you,” he says.

“Were you always this slow?” Kitty asks. “Could have sworn you were a bright kid. Very good at copying your mum’s signature, weren’t you? Poppy always got you to do it on her school trip forms. I remember. Even when you were about ten.”

She shrugs, no matter, and waggles her fingers at him in an abrupt goodbye. With one final lingering look at Arthur, that concern creeping back into her face, Kitty Wilson turns on her heel and strolls away, looking for all the world like there’s nowhere she’d rather be.

Eames watches her go, that flooded, desperate feeling still swollen inside him. Helium and lava and an ocean of despair.

“Poppycock, I love you,” he whispers, a dimpled smile he can’t control.

Scrambling into action, he parks the car and dashes into the hotel, keys in hand, to find their room.

|*|

**cadenza | ten**

It was October, rain like dust scattering in the high winds and the leaves changing like whisky in barrels, clinging tight to their branches as they bend in the storm.

The job was tricky, the good kind, the up-late-in-early-bickering-over-the-coffee kind. Eames stayed in a perfectly charming four-star hotel that had, surprisingly yet undoubtedly, the most luxuriously wonderful showers he had ever experienced in his life.

The job was tricky and Arthur was so stressed he didn’t even acknowledge Eames’ jibe about his tie, which was a waste because it was a particularly good one.

Ariadne laughed, but it was the stifled kind, because she respected Arthur too much to actually laugh in his face, and for some reason she had harboured a rather intense degree of loyalty to him ever since their first job together.

Not that Eames had noticed, or anything.

The job was tricky, but it was _good._ Eames’ mind, busy, his hands smudged with pencil marks and his forgeries particularly well crafted.

Arthur, snippy and surly, nothing new, and Ariadne flourishing in her dream career, like they’d expected she would after seeing her work inside Robert Fischer’s mind.

“We missed you on the Chiron job,” she said to Eames as she topped up his coffee from the cafetière one day.

“The Chiron job?” Eames asked with distracted curiosity, thumbing through Arthur’s notes on the mark’s spouse’s daily routines, as detailed as if he was planning on forging her instead.

Ariadne put down the empty cafetière and peered over his shoulder, one eye on the papers and the other on Eames’ half-turned face.

“Yeah,” she said casually. “In Kuwait? We could have really used a decent forger.”

Eames snorted, glancing up at her face, creased with the details of her thoughts like they’re pencilled into her brow.

“Flattered as I am that you think my repertoire extends to mind reading, Ariadne, you could have just asked me. I’m not _that_ difficult to get hold of.”

This was slightly less than half a lie; perhaps a third of a lie. He was, after all, quite difficult to get hold of. The only people who had his permanent number were his sister and Yusuf.

Still, he was never wanting for work, and he liked making people put a bit of effort into recruiting him. Perks of the trade, of course.

Ariadne frowned, a hiccough of surprise in her throat.

“But you – Arthur said –” she blushed, and her mouth twisted like lemons around her swallowed words. “Never mind.”

She nudged his coffee a little further up the table, out of reach of his wandering elbow, and scurried back to the kitchenette with her eyes determinedly fixed ahead of her.

Eames couldn’t quite pinpoint what precise feeling washed through him in that moment, sitting at his table and watching young Ariadne’s retreating back. It was confusion and curiosity; it was indifference coloured with the tiniest hint of hurt.

 _Arthur said. S_ aid what? Pretended to ask Eames and then said he’d refused?

It didn’t seem out of the realms of possibility, but it did seem a little excessive. If Arthur hadn’t wanted Eames on the job, he could have just said as much to Ariadne in the first place.

Eames stared at the pages in front of him, coffee curling steam shapes beside him and his chin resting on his folded knuckles.

He sat there for quite some time; long enough for the coffee to cool, and for Arthur to return from a meeting with the client, and for his uncertain feelings to bundle themselves neatly into a tight knot of indignation.

Arthur was tapping away at his laptop when Eames turned his whole body in his chair, arms folded tritely over his chest and his ankle resting over his knee. He didn’t say anything at first, just stared at the sleek side of Arthur’s head until he gave in and stopped working.

Turned his head with an impatient, demanding look on his face.

“Can I help you, Mr Eames?” he asked with both eyebrows raised high in his forehead.

“The Chiron job?” Eames retorted archly, and the look of surprise, of near contrition on Arthur’s face, was a wonder.

Arthur sighed a little sigh, parental and childlike.

“What about it?” he asked, doing his best to sound bored, but there was colour in his cheeks that hadn’t been there before.

“Was there a reason you didn’t ask for my help? According to Ariadne, I’d have been _most_ useful.”

Arthur glanced to the closed door behind which Ariadne had disappeared with her models some time ago, perhaps seeking absent help, or perhaps making sure they wouldn’t be interrupted. Then he turned, matching Eames’ seated position in his chair so perfectly Eames felt a trickle of shame at his own petty posturing.

“It was an insider job,” Arthur said with a one shouldered shrug.

“And you didn’t think I’d be up to snuff?” Eames scoffed, even as those little alarm bells rang ripples in his hindbrain, little waves of _shut up shut up shut up._

Arthur made a face that looked a lot like he wanted to roll his eyes.

“The client was one of Jay Brockman’s ex-chemists,” Arthur replied, voice of stone that punched through Eames with momentum.

And with that, Arthur turned back to his laptop and continued tapping away, even though Eames stared at him long after the silence grew so discomfiting it was all but unbearable.

Even then, it lasted. Stretched like kneaded dough growing stale, into _too much,_ into _too far,_ until Ariadne returned with her new design, chipper and cheerful, and said, “Eames, do you want to take a look at your level?”

Eames agreed, even though really, he didn’t, not at all.

Glanced back at Arthur as he left to the side room, but Arthur didn’t look up.

They didn’t talk about it again, and Eames couldn’t help but feel relieved.

|*|

**dover, england**

What follows is, undoubtedly, one of the longest nights of Eames’ life.

Getting to the room is, in the end, relatively simple. The reception desk is tucked to one side, and all it takes in an easy walk with confidence to get up to the room without anyone questioning him.

After a quick scan, bags dropped on the desk and heating on full, Eames returns to the car and walks Arthur directly to the lift, while he gives a truly stellar performance of _sick as a dog,_ which Eames thinks is probably more acceptable than _drunk as a skunk_ before six the evening, even on a Saturday in England.

Bedcovers pulled back, Eames settles Arthur onto the mattress, makes short work of the soft clothes he’s been sweating out in for almost an entire day and runs a cool bath.

The antibiotics are in pill form, which is less than ideal, so Eames decides to wait until after bath time for that fight.

Arthur’s bony and heavy, which is an unfair combination when he isn’t lucid enough to help Eames out by at least keeping himself upright. Eames can already feel his back protesting, after driving all hours of the night and half a day, not to mention the none too gentle treatment he’d enjoyed under Marić’s care back in Croatia.

He’s barely got Arthur in the shallow, almost-cold water, when he feels the violent sugar and caffeine crash start to rattle through him, as five people’s worth of energy drinks, coffee and junk food starts to claim its heavy toll.

His hands are shaking as they cup handfuls of water to pour down the thin striped burns on Arthur’s side. They’re tender looking, but not swollen. Old, too, by the looks of it. A few days ago, like a lot of the bruises on his legs.

The cut under his eye is another matter entirely.

It’s angry looking, livid and puffing up by the minute. He feels a flutter of panic at the thought of the infection spreading up _into_ Arthur’s eye, but he’s pretty sure it won’t have time to get that deep. Just another half hour and he’ll have a round of antibiotics in him and then everything will be fine.

Of course it will. It has to be.

After a little while, the cool temperature seems to pull Arthur back down to earth. He manages to actually look at Eames, which is nice. Welcome, even, because he isn’t glaring or scowling. Instead, he just looks up at Eames with soft scrutiny, like Eames is a paint by numbers and he’s wondering where to start.

It’s a surprisingly nice look, really, and Eames gives him a little smile of encouragement.

“Hello,” he says, and Arthur almost smiles, although really, it’s just two incredibly faint dimples in his cheeks.

Eames nudges his thumb into one of them, as if to memorise its place.

“You’re here,” Arthur says, childlike wonder, and then, “I’m here.”

“Yes,” Eames says, chuckling. “Very astute of you, Arthur. And do you know where here is?”

It’s probably an unfair question, but Arthur gives it a good go anyway. He blinks, looking up and down at his own naked body, then at Eames’ rolled up sleeves. He glances at the door and at the sink and up at the shower head above him.

“The bath,” he says, and Eames grins.

“Yes, that’s very true,” he says with only a slight puff of laughter. “We’re in Dover, darling. In a hotel.”

Arthur accepts that with a little nod, closing his eyes, but it isn’t like before. It’s a relaxed look, a _safe_ look, like maybe he trusts Eames to keep watch, and that feels incredibly precious, coming from a man who once told Eames he would rather bite off his own tongue than go on a stakeout with him.

They make it through bath time mostly unscathed. Arthur’s flushed face cools, along with the rest of him, and Eames only gets properly splashed on the ascent to standing when it’s time to get out.

Arthur’s shaky as a new born colt on his legs, though, and he shivers again when Eames bundles him into a towel and dries him off with hasty brushes.

Eames’ mouth is bone dry and his stomach in convulsing. The joints in his hands feel horribly weak.

His mind is sluggish, running on auto as he pulls a staggering Arthur to the bed, barely able to help him shuffle into some clean clothes. He wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep, too, but he needs to get the antibiotics into Arthur before the fever comes back with renewed vengeance.

There’s a lump in his throat and inexplicably he wants nothing more than to call his sister, just to thank her, even though it’ll be the last thing she wants.

He leaves Arthur passed out under the covers, pocketing the key card and two of Mancunian Molly’s twenties.

There’s a Tesco Express just around the corner and thankfully it’s so busy he manages to pay for only about half his items on the self-service counter without getting noticed. He smiles politely at the security guard and manages, somehow, to walk steadily down the pavement all the way back to the hotel.

Arthur hasn’t moved, is lying perfectly still under the duvet. So still, in fact, that Eames slips a hand under to his throat to check his pulse, blushing to himself when he finds a perfectly steady, if faint pulse below his jaw.

He drops everything onto the desk with the other bags, pulling out the antibiotics and a large tub of plain natural yoghurt and plastic spoon.

Turning to Arthur, he waves the spoon at his unconscious form and says darkly,

“Do not fight me on this, ok?”

Eames isn’t sure what Arthur _does_ do could be considered fighting it. Nonetheless, he isn’t exactly passive.

Straining with painful whimpers against Eames’ grip, Arthur buries his face in the pillow to hide away from Eames’ coaxing, his breaths coming sharp and fast in his upper chest.

 His temperature’s already creeping up again, and Eames doesn’t _want_ to resort to force-feeding but he absolutely will do if it means Arthur’s still going to have his blessed twenty-twenty vision by the time this entire ordeal is over.

Yoghurt splatters across the pillow as Arthur manages the smack Eames’ hand away the first time, and the second. On the third, Eames manages to get Arthur’s mouth open just long enough to get the spoon between his lips, only for it to get retched up again immediately.

“Arthur, fucking _Jesus,_ listen to me,” Eames snarls, but Arthur’s won’t have it.

He rears back, and Eames could have seen the headbutt coming from ten miles away.

Arthur turns his neck and his mouth is shut and the uncut side of his face is exposed for the briefest of moments.

Before even his own ill-judgement can pause, Eames smacks his palm across the bridge of his cheekbone.

The cry Arthur lets out jars between them and Eames, he’ll worry about that later, because in his utter surprise and probably substantial pain Arthur’s mouth opens and Eames none too kindly rams the pill and yoghurt halfway down his throat.

It isn’t nice, the squirming, pained noise Arthur makes as Eames clamps a hand tight over his face, blocking his airways until he’s swallowed it down. Brings up something vile and toxic between Eames’ lungs to see Arthur’s dark eyes confused and betrayed, his body twitching when, finally, Eames lets go and Arthur spits out only unwanted air.

“Fucking psycho,” Eames snaps, even though his jaw aches from his clenched teeth and his arms are trembling and he can’t even bring himself to look at Arthur as he rolls back and away up to the clean pillow, blinking unsteadily and making wrinkled sounds of fright.

Eames sits on the bed, exhausted, one hand over his eyes, a mostly fully pot of yoghurt in the other, and comes very close to crying.

Tossing the spoiled yoghurt-pillow onto the floor, he takes up a cushion, slides his feet out of his shoes and crawls into bed like a dying fox into its burrow. Arthur’s only a fraction of movement away from him; he can feel his trembling across the mattress, even as it slowly even out.

Eames closes his eyes, his windpipe burning, and even through the wash of colourful dizziness spilling into the corners of his mind, he drops like a pebble down a well, into a fast and violent sleep.

|*|

Eames attempted to perform an inception for the first time when he was twenty-eight years old.

He did everything right, but it went wrong anyway.

He woke up in hospital twelve days later.

|*|

**dover, england**

Eames dreams again, topsy turvy in the night.

The dream is pasty; washed out, sunlight piercing through a photograph.

Eames, sitting at the very edge of the world, and the sea dissolving into the sky. Clusters of stars on the horizon, and the pink shadow of the sun.

It’s very hot, here, in his dream. The sand beneath him where he sits, cross-legged, and the steamy scent of rain in the air, muggy as thunder.

He stares at the green, seaweed shallows, and the shoreline licks up and down, a scant few inches from his feet.

Beside him, a crackling pyre burning. He can feel the draft of its bitter smoke, the ferocity of its impotent, unmoving anger. It will burn, he thinks, forever, despite the rain that’s fast approaching.

And on his other side, a man sits, cross legged, painting spirals into the sand with his hands.

Eames doesn’t look at him. He stares ahead at the horizon, at the burst of light fading to an inky, octopus purple.

Behind them, the grumbling of thunder; of an engine or a dog.

“Get out of your head,” the man says, and Eames nearly smiles.

 _“Ge’ ou’a yer ‘ed,”_ he mocks gently, to a snuffle of laughter.

Eames scoops up two handfuls of sand, his palms stinging from the burn, and drops them through his fingers. Sieves it to fine gold, granular and nettled.

As the light peppers and silts into periwinkle grey, a warm, guiding hand finds his shoulder; the long stretch of an arm sloping across his upper back like a brand. He leans ever so slightly into it, the smell of fresh-turned mud and seaweed, the weight of familiarity.

Those hands, always careful, sliding over the downward dip of his collarbone, up into the junction of his throat, a vulnerable spasm of trust.

Those fingers, wrapped around the back of his neck, pinching tight into his spine.

Eames, frozen, sitting on the scorching sand as the sun fades and he stares blindly out to the horizon, feels the catch in his throat like a fish hook in his soft palate. He’s corded tight as an anchor’s rope, daren’t move under that claw-like grip.

A voice, another voice, another man; one who is not welcome, not here, not him.

“Forrest,” the voice says, gnarly, reedy, soft as dark chocolate in a warm pan.

Eames moves, or tries to, jerks sideways but the hand holds too tight, nails biting into the skin of his throat and he’s tipped forwards, a second hand clutching him just below the joints of his jaw. His eyes, closed, but the smell of mud and seaweed is gone.

There is only sharp cologne and army regulation blend.

“I know, I know,” that mouth on his crown coos, so sympathetic, always was, every time. “I do hate to have to do this, you know.”

He tries to pull back but the man’s grip is too strong, the man is too strong, or maybe Eames is just too weak.

“Now, Forrest, you know better than that,” the man says, warnings, hazard lights blinking on a long-crashed car. “And we both know of the two of us, you’re going to enjoy this more than I will. Isn’t that right?”

The tide is close. Eames can feel the rush of its approach.

He takes a deep breath, pearl diver plunge, his scalp wrenched back and a burrowing, bruising pain in his face.

 _Matthew,_ he hears like a demand and a plea and a curse, like all his sins balled up into two sticky syllables that won’t unknit themselves from his skin.

A hand, striking hard, airless as the depths of the ocean and Eames, he wakes up gasping.

He wakes up.

Wakes up to a scream, one he’s heard before, tinny through a hand-held voice recorder, shoved in his face like a prize denied.

“Arthur,” he slurs, dumb and undecided, even as his body moves autopilot, leaps into action, grasping those writhing limbs that are fighting the duvet covers like a sworn enemy. “Arthur, wake the fuck up, _shit.”_

Arthur’s voice, stuttering in and out of his throat, a choking chime that runs through Eames, knives through flesh.

Arthur’s eyes, half open, fluttering damp as he shakes and wrestles weakly against Eames, shies away to the edge of the mattress, until he’s close to falling right off it to the floor. Eames pulls him tight but it only makes Arthur fight harder, tantrum toddler, tears on his face.

“P-P-Please – E-E-Eames,” he cries wetly and when Eames lets go in shock Arthur topples backwards onto the floor in a sprawl.

“Christ,” Eames huffs, vaulting over the mattress in a flail of limbs and pulling Arthur up, unsteady as he shakes his head.

His gulping sobs are bracketed between them on the floor, resonant echo of nightmares reverberating in the space that separates them. Scant inches and a hundred thousand miles.

It’s minutes before Arthur’s hitching breaths are silent; they sit for nearly twenty of them, the tumble twitch of his shoulders, bending under Eames’ wary eye.

He’s tucked inwards, folded like a paper plane corded so tight at the seams, Eames aches to look at him. He reaches out a hand, brushes it tentatively through his dark, matted hair.

“I –” he murmurs, then cringes at the crack of his own voice.

Eames retreats slowly, moving half-speed into a higher kneel.

“Are you ready to move?” he asks, and at first Arthur shakes his head, tiny, a tremble of movement.

Then, flutter through dark lashes, those red-rimmed, honey bright eyes. The slash in his cheek, knitted by Eames’ hand. He looks very small, even in the shadows strewn about them.

A nod, just the one; a tree bowing in high wind.

The muscles along the back of his neck, taut and damp.

Eames takes hold of his upper arm, feather light, a tug. Arthur flinches back, his eyes on the bed like it’s the mouth of a cave.

“I don’t,” he says, hoarse, harsh; the rest, lost in a look that Eames has never received before, certainly not from Arthur.

That Peter Rabbit face of his, young as youth, and frightened.

“I know,” Eames replies, which feels like nothing, because he doesn’t; or maybe it’s everything. Arthur nods again, as if in agreement, as if in solace.

The quiet ticks into a void, resting between them and over them. Their breaths, matching in the dim and pulling them closer.

Eames studies Arthur’s face, the lines of it, the waxy thinness.

“I’ve got an idea,” he says, and Arthur looks at him, looks into his eyes like he might read the thought in his irises.

When Eames shifts his weight, Arthur matches it, like their breaths. Moves with stiff, achy shifts up to his knees and even allows Eames to take his arms, pulling him upwards.

Eames doesn’t miss the way his shoulders drop ever so slightly, a spasm of relief crossing his features, when Eames pulls him away from the bed, with its deep cushioned mattress and triple tog duvet.

They go instead to the bathroom, pungent vanilla soap from the mostly successful bath still lingering in the air.

Arthur gives him a look when Eames stops next to the bath. The hard light brings out every bruise on his throat, the deep crimson burst in his cheek and the shadows under his eyes. He looks so very far away from the Arthur Eames is used to, that he has to look away.

Eames gets in first, settling down in the scoop of the bath and letting the remnant water droplets seep into his clothes. Bending his knees, he pats the bottom of the tub between his legs and decidedly doesn’t offer Arthur any help getting in. Either he will, or he won’t, and for the briefest of seconds Eames thinks he’ll maintain his obstinance and refuse.

It would almost be welcome, he thinks in a shy, back-of-the-mind thought. A little stubbornness would be so much better than this pliant ragdoll he’s dragged across Europe.

Arthur puts his hands on the edge of the bath and steps into tub, one Bambi leg at a time, a little frown in his face of such vitriolic disbelief, Eames would laugh if he wasn’t so exhausted.

Perched between Eames’ legs, Arthur holds himself in a slightly skew version of upright, away from the bulk of Eames’ relaxed torso. With only the slightest eye roll, Eames takes his shoulders and pulls him, easy little nips of his cautious fingers, back into himself, until he is stretched limp cat along the bath.

Arthur takes a breath, and Eames feels it through his ribcage.

The light is unkindly bright, but neither of them mention it and after a little while, stilted breaths and incremental shifts, Eames feels the moment when Arthur lets the last of his weight drop into him. The uninjured side of his face is resting on his collarbone, nose just brushing his throat.

His hands are on Eames’ sides, curved around him in a false grip. Eames keeps his breaths steady, measured movements of his chest in a rhythm that Arthur quickly falls into, like a restive child.

In that stillness, Arthur says, just once,

“They didn’t do anything.”

His voice is gravel burn rough, as if the words have been scraped out of him. Eames keeps one arm loose around his waist. The other threads easily into his hair and when Arthur doesn’t immediately shove him away, he keeps it there, the pads of his fingers rubbing softly into his scalp.

He thinks about the photo in the envelope, the third one, the cables nipping the skin now hidden under soft cotton.

“They did enough,” Eames says very quietly, very tenderly, a kiss of words on his tongue.

Arthur shrinks into him, just so, his spine curving and his limbs pulling up an inch or more.

In fits of quick-calm breaths, stretching turns of his joints that Eames can pinpoint like needles, Arthur drifts into a doze, or maybe even a sleep.

Eames closes his eyes, the bathroom light still tickling through his lashes but he’s slept through plenty worse. The bath isn’t exactly luxurious but there is something safe about it.

He feels oddly peaceful, despite Arthur’s elbow digging into a bruise and the crush of his chest and the invasive light above them. The cold damp beneath him.

An affectation of being no stranger to loneliness, perhaps, the easiness of silence within him as they lie in a cold bathroom, porcelain and peace.

Eames breathes slow and his eyes, closed, clenched.

 _Get out of your head,_ Kelvin used to tell him, and it was almost easy, then, to crawl out of his own thoughts, into the encroaching light of kinder company.

It doesn’t mean the same anymore. Eames lives inside his head, now, and the heads of others. He doesn’t know how else to exist. Solitary social creature, starved and sated.

He wonders idly if Arthur feels at all the same, as his fingers brush steadily through the downy tangles of his dark hair.

Eames thinks it should feel stranger than it does, to have Arthur pressed so close. Uncomfortable as it is, as wretched as it is, it doesn’t feel strange at all. Even though the last time Arthur’s face was tucked into his throat like this, they were bruised only by each other’s possessive hands, and there was whisky on their tongues.

So long ago, too. They were quite different people then.

With Arthur safely asleep, Eames skims his hand delicately up along his spine over his shirt; up, up, across his shoulder blades, the gooseflesh of his bare arms. There’s a deep, welted mark at his shoulder that looks suspiciously like the business end of a taser.

Eames knows he should feel something at that, the ridged burn of electricity, innocent skin barely healed; he should feel more than this chasm of absence in his chest, as Arthur’s weight dips into him, a flinching turn, settling under Eames’ hands.

He should feel the depth of these fingerprints. Skin he has touched, however briefly, however long ago, kissed and known.

He remembers, through the disloyal mist of memory, that gasping smile that tasted of single malt and very smug satisfaction.

Arthur isn’t so young anymore; has lost some of that bully bruise pride and replaced it with something colder, and harder. This persona of untouchable force, not bristly as he once was, but rather as a painting might never to touched.

Eames preferred the hackle-raised cat he used to be.

Before an hour has passed, as a drowsy chill seeps over him, Eames feels Arthur shiver in early warning, a murmuring sound trapped between his throat and Eames’ sternum.

Eames pulls him free of it with the same whispering sounds Poppy used to make, when they were children and night terrors were easily heard across the hallway.

Eames keeps his eyes closed against the glare of light, holds in his mind that perfect pause of stillness, so that even as Arthur ceases his twitching, Eames too can drift back against the tide.

The night crawls, and the light remains.

Arthur sleeps, and so does Eames.

|*|

**interlude | max**

It’s not the latest Max has ever stayed in his office, not by a long stretch, but it’s the latest he’s stayed without needing to in quite some time. The latest he’s stayed, not because he’s needed, but because he knows he will be soon enough.

He sits in his office, sleek dark walls and low lamplight, sipping his token thumb of brandy and reading through tomorrow’s briefings.

Phillips shows up sooner than Max had expected, looking just as ruffled as he’d thought he would.

Three raps on the wood, Max calls _Come in_ and Phillips sweeps in, long strides of great importance, the door swinging heavily shut behind him.

Max raises his eyebrows in polite concern.

“What can I do for you, Phillips?” he asks, and maintains his sly amusement, because there’s no point in hiding that he knows exactly what he can do for the man.

Phillips, disgruntled, helps himself to an uninvited seat, which on another day might get him in trouble.

“Matthew Forrest has been flagged entering the country at Dover by ferry,” he says in a sharp, commanding voice, as if addressing his non-existent troops.

“Yes,” Max replies coolly. “And?”

Phillips’ cheeks are a little flushed looking. His beard waggles as his chin moves.

“Well,” he says, indignation injected so deeply into the word it might be five syllables long. “Are we going to go and get him, then?”

Max narrows his eyes, lips pursed as if considering it. Then he tips his head a little, one shoulder moving in what one might mistake for a shrug, and says,

“I don’t think so.”

Phillips, of course, looks scandalised.

“Max, you can’t be serious.”

“I assure you I can be,” Max retorts, returning his attention to the report in his hand. “Help yourself to a brandy, Phillips. It’ll do wonders for your nerves.”

Phillips makes an aborted move to stand, perhaps in the hopes of making a dramatic exit. Max rather wishes he would, if only to hurry along his absence. Unfortunately, Phillips decides he has more to say on the matter.

“Max, I know he’s your nephew, and I know you think you’re protecting him, but –”

“I think nothing of the sort,” Max says in his tartest, one-warning tone. Even Phillips listens to that tone.

Well, usually.

“Then let’s go get him!” he cries. “Quickly, _now._ He’ll have hours on us soon and God knows where he’ll disappear to if we don’t –”

Max laughs, then. It’s ever so sweet, Phillips’ rigid determination, his incredibly deep-rooted need to _get it done._

“I know where he’s going,” Max assures him, coolly. He offers Phillips one glance over the top of his paper, gesturing to the brandy on the desk between them. “Honestly, Ian, it’ll do you good. Just a splash of brandy.”

Phillips scoffs, pouring himself the tiniest measure of brandy and sinking it in one gulp. Clearing his throat again, he continues as if refortified,

“Forrest hasn’t crossed the border in over ten years. Who knows when he’ll do it again, but this is our chance to –”

“To what, Phillips?” Max snaps, throwing down the report and picking up his brandy instead. He swirls it in his glass, glittering golden dark in the crystal. “Arrest him as a citizen for his heinous crimes, or dangle him over another court martial and watch them all snap up horror stories of evil Captain Brockman and his somnacin addicts?”

Phillips grimaces, and has another helping of brandy to compensate for his lack of a reply.

Max rubs at the lines in his forehead, lines that have grown and spread over the years, quicker than he’s kept count. Is he so old already? His hair thin and grey, his body no longer so powerful, so agile. Even Phillips is on the other side of his prime, now.

“I know exactly where my nephew will go,” he says. “And I know without a doubt in my mind, he’ll leave soon enough, and we won’t hear from him again. Report me for misconduct if you dare, Phillips. I won’t be helping you hunt him down this time.”

He sips his brandy, hot on his tongue like a curse word. Glowers over the glass rim at Phillips and for a moment he honestly thinks Phillips will do it.

Only, Phillips’ expression softens. He looks, not apologetic – not that, _never_ that, not until the Four Horsemen demand it – but understanding. He looks defeated, too.

Draining his glass again, Phillips gets to his feet, shoulders not half as high as when he stormed in only moments ago, and a strange look comes over him, like glee and sorrow all rolled into one.

At the door, he turns to Max, full of that strange, gleeful sorrow.

“Do you really think he’ll thank you for protecting him _now?”_   he asks.

Leaves before Max can answer, which, really, is just as well.

Max knows what his answer is, doesn’t dare to speak it out loud.

|*|

**motorway, england**

Getting behind the wheel of Kitty Wilson’s people carrier the next day takes more mental strength than physical.

Eames had woken up in the bathtub only when Arthur slipped on the side in a feeble attempt to clamber out, the heel of his hand coming down hard onto Eames’ shoulder and jarring him in a yelp that could have come from either man.

“Are you alright?” Eames slurred in what might have been words, only Arthur didn’t reply at first. He just slunk down to the bathroom floor with one hand on his head, clutching over the left side of his face.

The ensuing façade of pills and patching and pillows had been done in relative silence, and Eames wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion or shame that had kept Arthur’s gaze averted the whole time.

Eames wanted to tell him he shouldn’t feel embarrassed, that he was safe, but the very idea of voicing anything that might instigate further conversation on the matter silenced him as fully as it clearly had Arthur.

It was well into the afternoon by the time they were able to make tracks. This time, at least, Arthur was able to curl up neatly in the front seat.

“Where are we going?” he had asked in the meekest, most un-Arthur voice Eames had perhaps ever heard, and Eames in the squirm of discomfort at hearing it had snapped, _Somewhere safe._

Then he had taken off the handbrake and driven out of the hotel car park without so much as a glance in his passenger’s direction.

It’s only when he reaches beyond the muggy clutches of the M25 that Eames gives himself time to think over his route.

He shouldn’t be surprised to realise where muscle memory is taking him. He barely reads the road signs even though after over a decade he doesn’t recognise half the roundabouts and turnoffs. He knows this route, knows it better than the walk from Yusuf’s shop to his flat in Mombasa.

So what if the roads looks neater, or there’s a new junction, or a different bypass? The landscape is barely changed, the way England so rarely changes. Clings to its country-ness with a kind of pride he thinks perhaps it has no right to.

He drives lazy, hands four and seven, and he can feel a stir of worrisome hope in his chest to think what lies at the end of this road. The sky is overcast, the radio on low, and Arthur is blinking into a half-wakeful stupor.

Eames flicks a glance his way, sees the furrow of his brow and the way he winces as he turns to his other side, so that his back is to the window and he can see the steering wheel better.

“There’s pills in the glove compartment,” Eames says in an undertone, so as not to break the spell of their quietude.

Arthur makes a disgruntled noise, fumbling with the latch and pulling out a small child-locked tub of pills.

It takes several attempts to open it, and when he does he shakes a handful of pills into his cupped palm.

“One yellow and one white,” Eames says, ignoring Arthur’s glower as he funnels the excess back into the tube.

He dry swallows them both, but they stick and he splutters, retching.

“Here,” Eames says, reaching down to pull a new bottle of pepsi from the side of his door. “There’s some pancakes in the plastic bag at your feet.”

After a series of grumbling rustles as he follows Eames’ directions, Arthur lets out a wrangled squawk of indignation.

“What the fuck is this?” he demands, waving the packet near Eames’ face.

“Scotch pancakes,” Eames says with a twee grin. “Eat up, or those pills will come right back up again in ten minutes and I don’t think there’s a service station for a while yet.”

There’s something comforting about Arthur’s disgruntlement. Ashy skinned and bruised and hoarse as a storm he might be, but underneath the exhaustion is the promise of _Arthur,_ in all his snarling glory.

When Eames risks another glance his way, it’s to see him eating one of the pancakes so sullenly he almost laughs at the sight of it.

“Dry as fuck,” Eames thinks Arthur mutters under his breath, to which Eames has no response beyond,

“Would you prefer a Big Mac?”

Arthur’s visible shudder is a little exaggerated and comes with something that might be a distant cousin of a look of amusement.

After eating two of the offending pancakes, Arthur starts wrapping them back up, only to pull out a third and offer it to Eames. He takes it, less out of hunger and more because he can’t quite bring himself to reject the doe eyed look of apology in the younger man’s face.

“Ta,” he says, and distracted as he overtakes a lorry, subsequently misses the look Arthur gives him.

By the time he looks back, Arthur’s tucked himself badger-sett tight into his seat once more. His eyes are closed, his fingers lax in his lap. The antibiotics seem to be doing their job.

More to the point, the sleeping pills seem to work pretty damn well, too.

Eames nods quietly, to himself and his sleeping passenger. Turns down the radio to almost nothing, and takes the next exit, onto the A14.

|*|

**cadenza | five**

It was May, hanging basket bloom and the showery season just shy of late; droplets scattering across the streets in flurries of wet windy warmth. Trees full of throaty doves that shake their wings dry in the blossoming sunshine and at night, a cool clean breeze filtering through the open window of the hotel room.

They caught their breath together, in the pooled sheets of damp, miles of skin rubbed raw and aching.

“Do you really think it’s possible to build a third level without destabilising the first?” Arthur asked, in a distant, thought-ridden voice.

Eames turned his head to stare at him, a bemused smirk on his face that only widened as Arthur blushed, sweat lingering on his face like the rain on the window.

“Were you thinking about that the whole time?” Eames asked with a riddling laugh in his throat.

Arthur’s grin cracked, all teeth and embarrassment, a sliver of amusement.

“Not the whole time,” he replied, staring down at the bedsheet covering his lap.

Eames pulled his knees up to rest his forearms on them, fiddling with the cigarette in his hands a moment longer before passing it to Arthur, who accepted it without comment. It didn’t suit him, never did and never would, but he still fizzed the smoke between his swollen lips and Eames still watched with rapt attention.

He did, on the other hand, suit the tousled, fuck-flush look of him in that moment. It was better than his thin-lined suits, the godawful hair gel and the permanent scowl on his face.

Arthur, impatient even when wearing the purpling shape of Eames’ mouth at the base of his spine, said through his smirk,

“So, do you?”

Eames shrugged one shoulder, taking back the cigarette and pulling in another lungful, eating up the burn of smoke in the back of his throat.

“Of course it’s possible,” he replied, scratching at his jaw with his thumb and side-eyeing Arthur’s scepticism with false suspicion.

As much as he liked to pretend otherwise, he always enjoyed Arthur’s cynicism. It was a dependable force, a stable entity of its own that accompanied them on every job.

Eames looked at him again, took in his dimples and the way his bare shoulders sloped invitingly into his long, smooth spine.

“You have a suspicious amount of faith,” Arthur commented, narrow eyes and a swollen mouth.

Eames, disbelieving, almost offended.

“Faith has nothing to do with it,” Eames replied, shifting further back against the headboard, so that his shoulder was resting against Arthur’s.

He did not like the look Arthur returned him, then. It was a deceptive, derisive look, full of all the reasons Eames really didn’t like Arthur all that much, however pretty his mouth looked when he was angry, however nice his arse was framed by the trim of his stupid suits or, his most recent discovery, however nicely he mewled under Eames’ hands.

“What?” Eames asked, defensive and bristled.

Arthur’s mouth, an arch of pink open at the seams like a wound of glee.

“I don’t understand you at all.”

It probably wasn’t meant as an insult, but it rankled Eames all the same.

|*|

**sleights, england**

There is a village that sits on the outskirts of Whitby, rugged edges and a steep drop towards the sea. Eames knows its approach as a loved one, her taste and scent and the downy dream of her to look upon.

Purple heather and golden wheat.

Eames takes the turn off at a crawl, his lungs stuffed up into his throat. Arthur’s asleep and Eames, he’s tired, tired in his bones and in his soul.

He drives at that same pace, so slow, slow almost as the fading sun sinking into the hills, darkening the sea, which he glimpsed once at a turn half a mile back. He drives, and the road curves, and when he sees it, that muddy stump farm, he feels it in his stomach. Iron pebbles and hope.

The road runs right into the drive, and Eames pulls to a stop at an angle.

He stares through the window up at the house, her ivy stung face, those little windows curtained and the door a heavy dark wood. He stares so long, he almost doesn’t notice when the door opens, lost in his own imaginings.

Suddenly there’s a woman in the doorway, peering with furious curiosity at the car.

Eames gets out, gets out so quickly he stumbles into slamming it shut.

“Mary,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know how else to express the deep and abiding love he reserves only for this woman, who looks at him like her heart is in her very hands to see him.

Her heart, which was whittled strong by the wheat sea air long before it could break upon the death of her son.

Eames goes to her, as he did when he was young and afraid.

Her bony hands cradle his face, calloused thumbs skimming his cheekbones and Eames feels a wobbling lump in his throat to see her, to smell her perfume and brush his fingers over her cardigan with his hands.

Mary Taylor is unchanged. Time has not done her the injustices it does others. Her iron grey hair is tucked neatly behind her ears, buttoned with fat gold studs, and her sky eyes are as clear as they were the day she buried her only child.

“Matthew,” she says, that way she has of hers, like she’s talking to the very Gospel itself. That way that always humbled Eames even as it worthied him. Her eyes eat up the sight of him. “You look tired.”

“I’m sorry to come here like this,” he says and there’s no way to contain the starving animal in his heart that howls those words. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Mary smiles, stern and indulgent. She’d have made such a wonderful grandmother, given the chance.

“Only thing you should be sorry for is how bleeding long it’s taken you to get here at all,” she replies without admonishment, Yorkshire coast in every skipped h, every elastic vowel. She peers around him to the car. “He need a doctor?”

“No,” Eames replies hastily, shaking his head. His hands are still holding her arms, as if she might disappear in a wisp of chamomile smoke without his touch. “Just a bed and somewhere safe.”

“You’ve always had that here, lad,” a gruff voice answers.

Eames turns his head to see Thomas coming around the corner of the house, wellingtons more mud than rubber and wearing heavy overalls. He’s not smiling, but Eames has never seen the man smile in his life.

“Never doubted that,” Eames says.

The lie tastes of barley salt air and sands far flung from the Yorkshire Moors, where good men die in spite of their promises.

Something aches and loosens in Eames’ chest at the warmth of Thomas’ grip when he shakes his hand, a weight that doesn’t so much lift as shift, like pressure on his spine. He feels safe here, and perhaps he hadn’t always been sure he would be, but he’s always felt it, surrounded by these hills and the shuttering of the North Sea.

Thomas jerks his head in the direction of the car.

“You need an ‘and?”

Eames shakes his head again, then frowns.

“I’ve got bags in the boot,” he says and with nothing more than a clap on the shoulder Thomas heads for the car.

He’s still broad, his black hair speckled white and he moves with that self-same agile lion prowl that his son did; aware of his own strength, in firm control of it. A farmer’s strength. Strength that rears and soothes, so very different from the kind Eames grew up around.

While Thomas takes care of the bags and Mary retreats inside, leaving the door open in her wake, Eames returns to the passenger side door.

Arthur’s still out for the count, curled in a limp crumble of limbs into the seat. Luckily he’s leaning inwards towards the gearstick, so Eames carefully opens the door without much trouble, pushing it as wide as it will go in a heavy swing.

The heat and hum of the inside of the car hits him, thick and cloying. Arthur doesn’t stir, despite the rushing cold of the outside. There’s a thin layer of sweat on his brow, but it’s nothing more than the natural sweat of sleep and travel. Any fever seems to have been stayed by the pills.

“Come on then,” Eames mutters to himself, and to Arthur.

He ducks his head into the car, knees bent, and scoops one hand around Arthur’s back, tucked firmly into his armpit. The other, he slides under Arthur’s knees.

The lift itself is slow, an ache of muscles cramped from driving and Eames’ fingers must be too close to bruises because although he remains fast asleep, Arthur lets out a tiny, throat-slit moan of pain.

“Shh, I know,” Eames tells him, wheezing a little as he gets his legs back under himself. He’s glad he didn’t have to do this when they got to Calais; he’d have keeled over in an instant.

With a gentle nudging turn, he gets Arthur’s head to loll into the junction of his throat, safely tucked away.  He walks steadily, feet only just leaving the floor, scrape of dirt under his soles, all the way to the house.

The wallpaper is new, a warm shade of crème bathed gold by the lights. Eames sidles at an angle towards the stairs, thick maroon carpet rolling over each step. Mary’s at the top, waiting with a wide wicker basket in her hands.

Eames takes the steps one at a time, Arthur’s shoes scraping softly against the wall even as he presses back into the hardwood banister.

There are photos on the wall, more than the last time Eames was here. One of Kipling, the Labrador that’s probably dead by now. Another of Thomas, standing with his bare feet in the sea, trousers rolled to his knees and wrapped in several layers, with snow on his hat.

At the top of the stairs, a military print. Reds and greens and the shine of brass.

Eames shifts his grip on Arthur, tightens him closer, the heavy warmth of him pressed against Eames’ chest.

“Spare room’s already done,” Mary says, leading the way down the small landing.

Eames follows, his eyes fixed on the dark of Mary’s hair, all the way into a comfortably sized bedroom. Dappled wallpaper and navy curtains, a double bed with the covers thrown back and a bedside lamp casting orange streaks across it.

With a slight _oof_ of air, Eames sets Arthur down in his side, where he immediately sinks melting-muscle into a deeper sleep once more.

“I can get Cath out in the morning to check him over,” Mary says.

It’s not an offer; there’s no room for refusal, so Eames doesn’t bother. He just makes a start on getting Arthur’s shoes off. He considers doing more, but it’ll only risk waking him up and he’s already wearing the softest clothes he’s got.

“Let him rest,” Mary says, as if thinking the same thing, bending around Eames to pull the covers up over Arthur’s shoulders and tuck them firmly under him, cotton cocoon. “It’s your turn now.”

“He’ll wake up,” Eames says, roughshod, the warm candle scent of homeliness cloying his every breath. He can taste comfort and it aches, he hasn’t stood under this roof in so long. “He’ll –”

“He’ll survive without you for a few hours,” Mary says, guiding him out of the door with deliberate pushes, so that he stumbles helplessly out of the room. “We’ll be here.”

She stops with her nudging once they’re out on the landing, past the attic trap and he is standing equidistant from two partially open doors. He can feel panic sitting pretty in his chest, waiting to snatch his air. He wishes she would direct him, he doesn’t want to choose, he knows where these doors lead to and he knows each one will hurt.

Mary doesn’t say a word, though. She stands behind him, ghost close, and waits.

With his fingers curled into his palms, Eames takes the left door, and he avoids Mary’s eye, can’t bear to see her sadness, or anything else either. He doesn’t want to know if he made the right choice.

The door shuts behind him, a snap-click of safety. Eames doesn’t look up from the bed, double spread with dark blue sheets.

It smells of varnish and cotton dust, like a room regularly cleaned and rarely spruced.

Eames toes off his shoes, drops his shirt and jeans to the floor atop them and slides under the cold duvet.

The pillow smells of faded lavender, a wash weeks ago undisturbed. Here, now, Eames feels every little bruise resting under his skin, the tender spots of hurting muscles and the terrible pounding of his head.

Face in the pillow, arms hooked underneath like another layer of protection, Eames peers through the slits of his eyelashes into the dark.

The bedside cabinet is still there, the shadow of the lamp without its shade and the tiny porcelain cow blue tacked to the corner.

Behind it, a photograph propped up against the lamp body. There’s not enough light to see it, but that doesn’t matter.

Eames knows what it is.

|*|

Eames fell in love for the second time when he was eighteen years old.

It was a Tuesday, rain in the rafters and the wood pigeons heavy in the branches.

It sat between them in the quiet, his bloodied beating heart.

|*|

**interlude | arthur**

It takes a long time for Arthur to wake up. And then, no time at all.

He thinks he remembers a few tussles with consciousness, some ebbed confusion and coughing up pills. Only, it’s a hazy mass of dark pastels.

One moment, asleep, the next, awake.

He opens his eyes in the semi-dark and knows immediately he’s slept for a long time. It’s in his stiff joints and damp sweat stink. More than that, it’s in the tight, bruisy knit sensation in his face. It’s scarring.

Light bleeds around the edges of the curtain, strong and bright. He turns his head slowly on the pillow, takes in the table by his bedside with a glass of water and a battered copy of _Love in a Time of Cholera,_ which he thinks isn’t funny at all.

Slowly, weakly, he slips one hand out from under the covers and reaches for the glass.

Numb with tiredness and muscles little more than memory, his fingers nudge the glass too far and before he can realise his error, it tumbles right off the edge of the table, splashing onto the floor and soaking the carpet.

“Hnngg,” he gasps, head falling back into the pillow and he is overwhelmed by the awful urge to cry.

It chokes up in his throat, his eyes burn and out of his mouth escapes a sound he is certain should not be made by human beings, or at least not ones over the age of four. He’s distracted enough by his own self-pity, painfully aware that it is, in fact, self-pity, that he doesn’t notice the door opening.

Light splits through the grey shadows, and a voice sighs quietly.

“It’s not even milk, you know.”

Pulled fast out of his despair by sheer mortification, Arthur finds himself blinking up at a tall, thin woman with iron grey hair, wearing a chunky purple cardigan. She’s got a feeble look about her that Arthur rather thinks is a very well-maintained façade.

“I, who,” Arthur tries, words crumbling to vowels in his mouth.

The woman smiles an odd, not unkind but not exactly friendly smile.

“I’m Mary,” she says. “What might your name be, lad?”

She’s English, a rural voice he could probably place if he wasn’t so blindsided by her question. For a moment he thinks he’s been dumped on a doorstep.

No, though, that’s not right. He can remember, foggy as it is, Eames’ voice, close. He wouldn’t have left.

Which means he simply hasn’t told this Mary her guest’s name; has, rather, given Arthur the chance to choose one for himself. Surprisingly decent of him, really. Altogether unnecessary all the same.

“Arthur,” he says, and Mary’s eyebrows rise high in her wrinkled face.

“American,” she says, like she hadn’t expected that. “Well, _Arthur,_ I think it’s high time you make use of those matchsticks you call legs and come down for some breakfast. You need some proper food inside you and I need to change these sheets.”

Arthur blushes, though it doesn’t seem like she’s trying to embarrass him. Her sleeves are rolled pragmatically up her forearms and before he can protest, she’s helping him up out of the bed and onto his unsteady, cramping feet.

“Change of clothes,” Mary says, patting a pile of cotton folded over the bottom rail of the bed. “Be down in ten.”

He makes it in fifteen, but she doesn’t seem surprised.

The clothes are over-washed, thin at the edges and incredibly soft. The socks are hardest to get on, and Arthur tries not to think about the crinkle-cut stiff skin at his sides. Moreover, tries not to think about the jettison torch scorch of a taser held too long against the vulnerable underside of his ribs.

Though he must have been asleep for a godawful long time already, he still feels exhausted. His thoughts are reeling, a thorny tangle of bad dreams and car seats, the toss of the sea and the smell of hotel soap and between it all, _Eames._ His hands surprisingly gentle and his voice surprisingly low.

With this tumbledown blur of thoughts, Arthur shuffles slowly down the stairs with his eyes on the photos lining the walls. Mary, a dark-haired man who is probably her husband. A boy with dark red hair hanging out of a low branched tree.

Mary’s sitting at a square table in a well-lit, basil and tea scented kitchen, and she gestures to the seat opposite her. Arthur takes it, eyes darting between her patient face and the plate in front of him, the lightly buttered toast and apricot halves. There’s a teapot that smells of ginger and four waiting mugs surrounding it.

Arthur glances about him, kettle and toaster and stove, and asks, cautious,

“Where’s Ea –”

“Matthew’s gone to town with Thom, my husband,” Mary interrupts in a deliberate and uncompromising voice. Her eyes are a very clear grey, not entirely dissimilar to Eames’, though there’s no family resemblance to speak of. “Should be back soon enough.”

He wonders, for the first time, who she is. He doesn’t remember her from any of his backlog of research on Eames.

“Eat what you can,” she says, nodding down to Arthur’s plate, and he realises he hasn’t done more than look at his toast. “Won’t go to waste either way.”

Arthur picks up a quarter of toast with both hands, granary crumbs and the softest scrape of gold butter. There’s a restlessness in his bones, outweighed by the anchor strapped to his back. His heart, thrumming in his chest with all his anxieties and the bittersweet tang of gratitude.

With nowhere to put his fears, he simply says, very quietly,

“Thank you.”

Mary seems pleased by this, or at the very least approving. She nods once and starts pouring two mugs of steaming ginger tea.

After the slip up with the water glass, he doesn’t quite dare attempt picking it up yet. He takes a tiny bite of toast, chewing far longer than even his dry throat needs before swallowing.

He’s through a slice and a half, along with three pieces of apricot, when Mary speaks again. She’s clutching her tea, half sipped, and it’s that decisive tone again, that one that sounds trustworthy and testing.

“I’ve got two rules for you, Arthur,” she says, reaching into a small bowl between them and pulling a few red grapes from their stems.

Arthur raises his eyebrows to show he’s listening. Outside, he thinks he can hear a car grumbling over gravel.

Mary either doesn’t hear it, or is determined not to be distracted.

“I don’t want to know where you’ve been. And I also don’t want to know where you’re going.”

Arthur is entirely sure he agrees with the first sentiment, he doesn’t want _anyone_ knowing where he’s been if he can help it.

As for the second one, well, he hasn’t the faintest idea where he’ll go next. He can barely think about what he’ll do after he’s given up on his breakfast at – _quarter past two_ in the afternoon, as he now realises, glancing at the clock on the wall above the sink.

Mary jerks her head towards the window, just as a flash of green car pulls into place.

“When his shitshow family turn up on my doorstep asking questions, I want to turn my head and tell them I don’t have a bloody clue. Do we understand one another?”

Understanding washes over Arthur like a balm; he smiles, very small, around his apricot bite. He knows, now, he _understands._ He understands why Eames brought him here, why this is the first place he would come to, after years of avoiding British soil like it still merits a death penalty.

He widens his smile, enough for Mary to see it, to hopefully know its meaning.

“We do,” he agrees, rubbing the crumbs from his fingers and reaching for his tea.

Mary returns the nipped curl of a grin, a sly secrecy that for a moment is incomprehensible. Then there is the metallic clatter of a key struggling with a lock, the creaky swing of a door and the stamping of feet.

For reasons Arthur is not comfortable analysing in any detail, he feels the stain of a blush in his cheeks.

He keeps his eyes on the orange tangy swirls of his tea, wafting over his face and stinging at the exposed cut in his cheek, doesn’t turn even when a set of distractingly recognisable footsteps come to a stop in the doorway behind him.

Mary, pouring tea, makes a stern, disapproving sound.

“You didn’t tell us your Arthur was American, lad,” she says.

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Eames’ voice replies from behind, and Arthur can’t account for how ridiculously _safe_ he feels, to hear him.

Eames takes a seat beside him, taking the proffered mug and blowing away the steam as he stares directly at Arthur with a strange, challenging expression, as if he’s daring Arthur to make some comment.

Arthur doesn’t really remember much of the journey, but he does remember the look Eames gave him in the rear-view mirror of the car as they drove along Germany’s southernmost border. He remembers the deep bruising circles around his eyes and the dark tan of his skin that spoke of unfiltered sunshine.

It was some discomfiting combination of post-job Eames, exhausted and deflated, and the Eames that is confined to African soil; comfortable and calm and collected.

This man sitting at the table beside him, however, is not an Eames Arthur has ever met before.

His hair, tawny gold, is windswept and tangled, and he’s wrapped up in a thick black fleece that’s just shy of too small for him, thumb holes in the sleeves and a collar tucked up around his neck. His nose and cheeks are pink from the cold, poking out from something much closer to a beard than his usual scruff.

It isn’t, he thinks, a _happier_ Eames, per say, but it’s something close to. He’s carrying no weight, in a way Arthur doesn’t recognise, yet there’s something reserved in his eyes that’s never been there before. A sea too calm to look below the surface.

And then, with Eames’ discomfiting stare over the rim of his cup, Arthur realises.

“Matthew,” he says, half in peace, half to see the tightening around those reserved, restful eyes.

“Arthur,” Eames replies, approval or relief, perhaps, that silk voice that is so inexplicably welcome.

A second man enters, salt and pepper hair sprouting out from beneath a bright red hat. His face is bristled with an equally speckled beard and his hand gently brushes Mary’s shoulder as he passes her, running his fingers under a hot tap without acknowledgement.

Her husband, Arthur assumes. Thom.

“How are you feeling?” Eames asks, pulling Arthur’s eyes back to him.

Arthur blinks, tries to think of a word that might possibly sum up the hurt-damp-soft-bruised-safe-scorched wave that keeps cresting over him with every breath.

“Better than I did,” he says instead, and Eames shows him a flash of his teeth.

“Don’t think you could be any worse,” he murmurs, a sliver of his wry, normal self. His eyes dart over Arthur’s face appraisingly, lingering on his cheek, which is itchy and flushed, but least no longer throbbing with an infectious bitten prickle. “You look better.”

He’s telling the truth, which is probably more embarrassing than anything.

Arthur chuckles. So does Thom, standing at the sink.

“That’s not saying much,” he grunts, turning a twinkling eye over his shoulder to glance at Arthur. “Boy had his toes in his grave by the time you got here.”

Arthur ducks his head at that, at the soft crease around the man’s incredibly kind eyes and at the downturn of Eames’ mouth.

“How long…” Arthur starts, trailing off to clear his throat and in the pause he sees Mary’s eyes find Eames. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“We arrived three days ago,” Eames says. “Thought you might sleep until Christmas.”

It’s light, teasing, and the pillowed air is disrupted by Mary rapping Eames over the face with a folded newspaper like a dog.

“Don’t talk like you’re any different,” she says sternly. “You did a pretty good imitation of Sleeping Beauty those first couple of days yourself.”

Eames sniffs pointedly, sipping his tea.

Arthur doesn’t want to break the spell of kettle steam joy permeating the kitchen. All the same, he has a more important question, one that leaves his lips reluctantly, through the sting of ginger on his tongue.

“And, how long are we staying?”

He’s maybe never seen eyes like Eames’ before, never seen masks so changeable. He looks younger than he has done perhaps since the day Arthur met him.

It’s Thom that answers, though, from where he stands at the sink gripping a mug by the handle.

“As long as you need,” he says gruffly, and he doesn’t look at all pleased by his own answer.

It’s Mary that glows, then, bright as the copper kettle on the stove.

Arthur doesn’t think he’s ever felt so loved in all his life, by such a strange, unknowing kindness.

|*|

**sleights, england**

The Taylor Farm hasn’t changed much over the years. The livestock has multiplied. They have three extra fields, yet Thom has significantly less to do thanks to the extra hands he’s hired.

If someone had told Eames he’d bring a dream-share colleague here one day, he might well have shot them between the eyes for the cheek of it. And if they’d told him it was _Arthur_ he’d bring? He’d have shot them somewhere else, first, probably.

Arthur, willow limbs and underfed, who drowns in pretty much every item of clothing they give him.

Even after waking up, he stays inside for the next two days, looking peaky and pained and moving with a stiff, mousy manner that is utterly disturbing to see.

On the third day, however, he starts to remember himself.

He wakes up earlier, and is at the table by the time Eames heads down, looking for all the world like he’s been eating breakfast here all his merry life. He’s wearing a bulky sweater and he gestures to the pan of scrambled eggs slowly drying out on the stove.

Eames shovels a forkful into his mouth straight out of the pan, peppered and scented with a bit too much rosemary, like most things Mary cooks.

Arthur looks as close to comfortable as Eames thinks he’s ever seen him, sitting there, and Eames, he’s been able to shake off some of the stooping, shoulder slump worries resting over him, too.

Even sleeping in Kelvin’s room is easier. He’s stopped seeing the assorted oddities, the pen marks on the bedpost and the dent in the doorframe. He’s stopped noticing the Leeds Rhinos scarf hanging over the wardrobe and the Dracula postcards pinned to the corner of the window.

It is, now, little more than a room. A room in a house Eames adores with possessive energy.

So, really, it is a lot more jarring than it should be, when Eames walks into the kitchen to find Arthur at the table with fresh coffee and not-quite-fresh eggs and the first thing he says is,

“Djokovic’s torn up your place in Mombasa.”

Eames stares at him, at his rumpled hair and drawn face, pale with rough sleep.

There’s something vaguely accusatory about it.

“How do you know?” Eames asks, sizzling with numb anger, because he already knows the answer.

“Thom kindly allowed me to borrow his computer – I know how to cover my tracks, Eames,” he says sternly when Eames twitches with clear indignation.

He busies himself making more coffee, hoping to alleviate some of the acute pressure of Arthur’s stare.

Through the window, he can see Mary outside hanging sheets on the line, shaking them out into the breeze in great slaps of crème and blue.

There’s the squeak of chair on lino; the fidget of cups in a cupboard and Arthur slides one into Eames’ distracted hand.

Eames turns to him.

His stitches are still there, dark little pinches of thread across the thick scrape of dark red. They’ll probably need to come out tomorrow.

“Do you think Yusuf sold you out?” Arthur asks.

The questions seems obscure, and Eames blinks stupidly at him before realising. He shakes his head, rueful grin, and pushes Arthur back to his seat.

“No,” he replies, all self-recrimination in his stoop as he pours too-hot water into the coffee. The soft burn wafts upwards in a billow of steam. “No, that’ll be the Snow Leopard. She’s pissed at me for not letting her use my PASIV.”

Eames isn’t sure what he expects Arthur’s reaction to be at this. All he knows is he doesn’t expect what little colour is in his cheeks to wash out, his expression marbling and his spine stiffening where he sits.

“You know Sneeuliuperd?” he asks, much the way he asks if Eames _really_ plans to wear that tie with that belt.

Eames shrugs one shoulder, a little disconcerted by Arthur’s blatant shock.

“Biblically,” he says with forced complacency. “I was under the impression you didn’t know her at all.”

Arthur’s laugh has a nasty, disgusted edge to it.

“I didn’t even know _she_ was a woman,” he says, letting go of his coffee to fold his arms on the table. “I don’t _want_ to know her at all. Jesus, Eames, you’ve let her inside your fucking home?”

“Yes,” Eames bristles, feeling snappish and horribly chastised. “I can handle myself quite well, thank you. I know –”

“Did you know she killed Chloe Sheldon?”

“No she didn’t,” Eames scoffs, shifting in his seat opposite Arthur.

Between them, the strong scent of their coffee, and the plums in the basket between them.

Arthur won’t be swayed. His tired, glittering eyes are clouded with very real concern.

“Yes, Eames, she did. The Snow Leopard had a deal with Eric Rosario for free access across the Adriatic and Chloe put an end to it. The Snow Leopard took her out in retaliation less than a week later.”

Eames isn’t sure the stirring in his gut is a desire to defend Sam; he is in fact uncomfortably aware what he wants is to defend himself, his own blindness.

“I’m sure she had good cause,” he says.

Arthur, sneering, pole cat pleasant.

“You don’t believe that.”

And Arthur’s right, he doesn’t.

It’s not, Eames thinks, any kind of revelation. He’s never known Samantha Chamberlain to be anything but ruthless, deep in her bones. He’s never exactly been joking when he’s called her a psychopath, either.

It’s just, Arthur’s reaction is more than he could ever have anticipated.

He’s not surprised, he’s not upset. He’s downright shocked, he’s _angry_ at Eames, despite all the laws they’ve broken together, despite flaunting their criminality between them like a double dare with cream on top, _this_ has shaken Arthur, and Eames, he hates it.

Arthur’s hands, flat on the table with his fingers spread like an interrogation.

“Eames, you can’t trust her,” Arthur says, gentle. Cracked egg bleeding thick yolk.

As if Eames is a rookie. As if he needs it explaining to him.

Eames can feel the boil of resentment under his skin.

“I _don’t_ trust her,” he snaps, wasp sting consonants trapped between his teeth. “She’s useful. And if she’s so fucking dangerous – which, may I point out, I already knew – it seems to me I’m in the best position possible, having her in my corner.”

Arthur takes a deep gulp of his coffee, perhaps to mull over his choice response, or maybe to douse it.

Outside, Mary flits about as the sheets flap in the breeze, signal flags.

Inside, the air seems to congeal.

“You have other people in your corner, Eames,” Arthur says, very measured, almost rehearsed.

“Oh yeah?” Eames snorts derisively. “Who’s that then? You?”

He can feel his cheeks burning.

“Whenever you need me,” Arthur replies with far more casual a shrug than he has any right to offer Eames.

“Why would you say that?” Eames demands, and more to boot only Arthur cuts through the thick of his indignation with his own belligerence.

“Why did you come to Croatia?”

Eames should have a reply to that. However, he quickly finds he does not.

His mouth, goldfish agog, flycatcher.

He frowns, troubled and teased; the same question he asked himself as he got on a plane in Mombasa two weeks ago.

“I wasn’t going to leave you there,” he says, almost true.

Perhaps Arthur can scent the faint lie in the air, bloodhound that he is. He smirks, sad and surprised.

“Eames, I’m fine,” he says, as if he honestly thinks _that’s_ what’s bothering him.

Sometimes, Eames hasn’t got the faintest clue what he looks like through Arthur’s eyes.

Sometimes, like now, he doesn’t want to. Can’t ever know, because he is painfully aware that the reality of himself will come up incredibly short to whatever fantasy Arthur seems to have constructed.

“I’m not half as trustworthy as you seem to think I am,” he says, bitter tang on the tip of his tongue.

Arthur’s eyes dart across the room, as if looking for support; surely finding none in the kettle on the agave or the open bread bin or the stack of cookery books with pages ripped out.

“I beg to differ,” he retorts, and Eames, he comes very close to throwing the basket of plums all over him.

“Oh really?” Eames snorts derisively. “Gosh, Arthur, don’t hold back now. Confess your undying love for me and be done with it.”

Arthur doesn’t reply to that one, though. He tilts his head, puppy kick plain, like rolling over and showing his belly, and Eames feels a horrible, squirming sensation in his guts and in his fingertips.

Arthur doesn’t reply, and before he can do more than flinch around his coffee cup, Mary breezes back into the kitchen, bringing with her the cold scent of outside and soapy balm of laundry.

“You boys been down to the cove yet?” she asks pointedly, knowing full well the answer to that loaded question.

Arthur gives her a polite, questioning look, while Eames tries to look disdainful and fails miserably.

“Thom’s down there now,” she continues, as if their very presence is as unnecessary as any sort of reply. “Forgotten his bloody flask again.”

She gestures half a hand brush towards a tall, cylindrical flask on the counter, leaving with her nose in the air the way she used to when she caught the smell of tobacco on her son’s clothes.

In her absence, a Taylor-shaped hole in the wall spread across the table between the two men, Arthur and Eames look at each other, predatory and calculating and incredibly disbelieving.

Arthur clears his throat and says, gently, “Shall we, Matthew?”

It hurts, just the way it’s clearly supposed to.

And so, they go.

|*|

**interlude | mary**

When asked if she was God-fearing, Mary Taylor always used to say, in a wry and devout tone, “Why should I fear God? I’ve never harmed His will.”

She doesn’t say that anymore. Not that there are many who would dare ask her.

If someone were to, though, she might say, “There’s no point in fearing God. He’ll do as He pleases anyway.”

What she does fear, what she has always feared, is an intrinsic and personal kind of failure. The failure, not of herself, but her failure of others.

She failed her son, years ago, more than once. She failed his friend, too.

She knows that a great deal of her love for Matthew is selfish, that when she looks at his face she is looking, rather, at the ghost of Kelvin, and that Matthew probably knows this.

Mary watches the two men treading lightly through her house, barely disturbing the cushions on the sofa when they sit. The American, _Arthur,_ with his loud nightmares and his quiet manner. He’s stilted in his charm, as if he knows what he’s supposed to say, but not quite how to say it.

He talks reasonably with Thom on an evening, asking all the right questions about the farm and the area and lambing season. He offers his aid every time he sees Mary move to pick something up, despite being little more than a feather in a gale himself.

And he watches Matthew with a sharp, falcon focus that frightens her.

Matthew, in turn, seems to watch the air around his companion, seeking out his aura in place of his features. He’s broader than he was in his twenties, heavy shouldered like Thom, and just as tight-lipped as he always was.

A week passes, and the bones of another, before Matthew tells her, standing at the kitchen sink with soap up to his elbows, that it is time for them to go.

He doesn’t look at her as he says it, which feels too much like shame.

She puts her hand to his back, between the blades of his shoulders where wings might sprout, and nods to him.

“Whatever you need,” she says, because at the very least, she knows it has very little to do with want.

She thinks, perhaps, Matthew wouldn’t have left here at all, right from the first day he walked through the door, aged seventeen and teapotting his hands on his hips behind Kelvin like a command.

She’s missed him, all these years, and she’ll miss him again when he’s gone. She leans over to run her hand through his hair, smoothing it behind his ears and he smiles back at her looking so much like he did as a teenager that her heart stutters in her chest.

That night, she bids those cheek flushed, toast and butter boys goodnight and goes to bed quickly, before she can clam up with all the words she should have said fifteen years ago.

She lies awake for almost an hour, hearing not a peep throughout the house, before giving in to her busy mind.

She slips back into a dressing gown and slippers, heading downstairs to make a fresh tea.

At the door to the living room, lamp light spilling out, she stops, first to try and navigate the shadows undisturbed, then to listen to the muffled voices from inside.

 _“Who are they?”_ Arthur’s hard, American voice asks, not unkindly. Not gently, either.

Matthew makes a distracted, humming sound, as if he is only half-listening.

Arthur’s voice is louder, then, frustrated.

_“At first I thought, maybe family friends. I know they’re not your parents. Only, then I saw the photos. On the stairs, and more in one of those drawers.”_

_“Oh?”_ Matthew asks. _“What would those be?”_

Unkindness doesn’t suit his voice, not really. It is warm and fresh and good, it is a voice that should not know hard edges, yet has been bruised by them all the same. He never lost his mother’s vowels, not even after he lost everything else about her.

_“The military ones.”_

Arthur doesn’t sound surprised. Mary, against her better judgement and perhaps even against her will, draws back into the shadow of the hall, where their voices might be heard and her silhouette unseen.

In the closed up dark, she can feel the strangeness of her own house. As she did in her own when she was a little girl, running up and down the stairs as she pleased, unchallenged.

 _“Yes,”_ she thinks she hears Matthew say.

 _“Who is he?”_ Arthur asks, and his name, it’s there on Mary’s lips just as it always is, every waking second.

There is a pain exacting only to childless parents, one that is crueller than anything she could ever have imagined. It burns in her throat like tears even when her eyes are dry.

When Matthew does not answer, Arthur asks the correct question, unknowingly piercing Mary’s thunderous heart.

_“Who was he?”_

And Matthew, his reply is the truth, the bare bones alone because one cannot possibly recreate the dead once they are gone.

Thom tried, with his eulogy, but it was as if he had made Kelvin up entirely, because meagre words could never in their vanity do him justice.

_“He was their son.”_

Mary swallows her interruption, her cold fingers pressed against the softness of her mouth to hold in her rebuke.

 _“Who was he to you?”_ Arthur asks, and there is no accounting for Mary’s desire to hear Matthew’s answer.

She is cold and flushed and suddenly so utterly terrified and entranced. It is a question she has never dared to so much as wonder, and she can feel the shame of it like a curse upon her own grave that awaits her.

She wants to know so badly, wants to hear it and be haunted by it, wants to know if she wasted her son’s precious few years not knowing, not telling, not whispering in the harsh, blistered sunshine of waking day –

 _“He’s dead,”_ Matthew says, ice in his consonants and his mother’s venomous vowels. _“What does it matter?”_

Mary’s eyes close tight and she stumbles back, her chest full of terrible, aching wounds. She thinks perhaps, her broken heart betrays her, and gives voice.

She hurries up to her bed and she forgets even to take off her dressing gown before climbing back under her covers, her face pressed into the pillows so that they catch her mumbled tears.

In the morning, she wakes up with the sun.

Arthur is gone, and so is Matthew, but for a piece of paper folded around a wad of twenty-pound notes.

In scrawled red biro, he has written eight hasty words.

_He was the only person I ever_

The last word is scribbled out, in red and in black, like a hand over a mouth, made silent by despair.

|*|

**sleights, england**

Dawn breaks hard on the coast, tide on the rocks, taking forever.

When Eames wakes up, it’s still dark. Midnight’s kiss still cold on the cheeks of the windows. He lies awake for hours, memorising all the details of the ceiling.

 _Whatever you need,_ Mary had said, as if she could tell, as if she knew that Eames felt safer here than he had in a decade. That if it was up to him, his coat would hang on the rack above the wellingtons forever.

The night darkens, inks out to coldest black, and he gets up at the shriek of foxes in the gloom.

His bag is packed up in the car already. He’d done it in the huffing silence of Arthur’s impatient, unanswered questions the night before.

Itchy with unrest, Eames slips back into his warm layers, shoves his feet into a pair of boots and creeps thief-step down the creaky stairs, out into the chilly night.

He’s at the edge of the first fields at the southwest corner of the house before he realises he’s not alone.

Arthur is standing kiss-close to the tomato vines climbing the lattice of the south wall; Eames gravitates to him, does not question the pull of his feet, nor the cautious pause he leaves as he draws near.

“Can’t sleep either?” Arthur asks and there’s a hint of amusement in his dry voice.

Eames clears his throat, doesn’t reply. The words stick to his tongue because he thinks it’s more _won’t_ than _can’t._

“Can we go to the beach?” Arthur asks, quite unexpectedly, without looking away from the sickly tomato plants.

Fishing into the depths of his pocket, Eames withdraws the car key, says rusty steep,

“Yeah, alright.”

It’s a silent, crackling drive. Arthur’s brow is troubled, his mouth askew, and he stares out of the passenger window with listless energy.

Eames, for his part, keeps his breath steady in his lungs and drives at an even ten all the way down the single track, winding slope to the secret cove of moonstone light and seaweed sand.

He parks on the raised bank, tugging the handbrake extra hard and follows Arthur out towards the sea.

The tide is in, peak of the quarter moon’s waxy crest and it leaves only a sliver of shiny rock pool ledges to navigate.

Very slowly, Arthur picks his way over the slimy wet stones and Eames traces his invisible footsteps. His hands are fisted in his pockets and the salty air stings his face, biting at his nostrils and his lips.

The crash of the waves against the nearby cliff face splattering up to their little nested edges is a loud, rhythmic breath. A _whoosh_ of whispers they’ll never decrypt.

He can hear the labour of Arthur’s breaths matching the kiss of the coast. Eames watches his shape, lit silver by the shy moon and the bursting stars.

Eventually they come to a standstill, side by side on a rocky shallow free of moss, crunched with molluscs.

Arthur stares out across the wide, shadowy sea and Eames follows his gaze to the horizon, salt in his eyebrows.

He thinks about his dream in Zagreb, the irate dream-Arthur who asked _Why?_ like an accusation.

And in Dover, fitful unrest, that voice in his ear murmuring velvet, _I know,_ a hand bruising the back of his neck.

Eames shivers, and he knows it has little do with the sea air.

He looks out across the calm waters, full of questions.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

He’s not entirely sure he’s ever asked Arthur that before, has always either known already or not cared enough to question it. This feels different, though. He can’t penetrate these unspoken thoughts visible on his wind-bitten face.

“I’ll be fine,” Arthur replies in a surprising bout of honesty.

Eames glances sideways just in time to see him lick his lips.

His second question is just as accidental, spills out of him as unstoppable as the tide wetting their shoes.

“How did you know about Brockman?”

If Arthur is thrown by the abrupt change of tone, or the mention of Eames’ old Captain, he does a mighty fine job of concealing it. He just tilts his head, sighs his patronising little Arthur sigh and says,

“Once I figured out who your mom was, it was easy guesswork. You’re the firstborn son of a Sampson, even if she did marry beneath her.”

There are so many components of that remark to respond to, Eames is momentarily stilled. He stares at Arthur’s face, ashen ghost in the dim moonlight. Between the thinness of his face and the pinched skin of his eyes, he looks very young, younger than he has done in years.

Refraining from asking what Arthur made of his mother – and what light reading _that_ must have been – Eames just says,

“Second born.”

Arthur frowns, eyes flitting to Eames’ mouth and away again.

 _“Son,”_ he reiterates. “I thought girls didn’t count.”

Eames ignores the hot flash of possessiveness at even the vaguest reference to his sister. He realises that even more than knowing about Brockman, or his mother or even his father, he despises the thought of someone knowing about Poppy, even if that someone is Arthur.

So instead of acknowledging the hidden question in the statement, Eames says something he never thought he’d tell another living soul.

“Their first son died in infancy. Meningitis. I think everything would probably have been very different, if he’d lived.”

He doesn’t look at Arthur then. Doesn’t want to see surprise in his eyes, or something worse. The waves slap hard up the rocks, speckling their faces.

Eames stuffs his hands deeper into his pockets and says,

“None of which explains how you know about Brockman.”

 _Eames_ hadn’t known about Brockman at first. His stomach convulses, anxious snakes in his guts, hungry.

And Arthur, he lets out this hollow laugh, like it’s anything to laugh about, and Eames tries not to feel wounded by his callousness.

Then Arthur says,

“I’m good at what I do. And you didn’t exactly have a clean exit, Eames.”

A strange, burdening mixture of relief and disappointment mixes with the wind stinging over Eames’ face.

He wants to pull Arthur close, squeezing cobra tight. He also kind of wants to push him into the sea; watch him struggle for air the way Eames did for years.

He doesn’t tell Arthur he’s wrong, or that he’s not as good as he thinks he is.

“Does anyone else know?” he asks instead.

Arthur bristles beside him, shifting his feet like a ruffled pheasant on a roadside.

“If they do, it’s not because I told them.”

Sensitive wanker that he is.

“I didn’t mean –” Eames stop-starts. “You don’t owe me anything, Arthur.”

Another of those laughs, vicious cut of hyena vowels. Arthur sneers at him, almost playfully, but for the way he gestures to the angry scar in his face and says,

“I sure don’t now. I’ll be wearing this to my funeral, thanks very much.”

Eames winces, but refuses to look away. He won’t be shamed by it, won’t give Arthur the satisfaction of making him feel like that scar is anything other than another scar, if more visible than most of his others.

“I’m sorry,” he says and he means it.

Arthur doesn’t accept the apology. Doesn’t throw it back at him either, so Eames counts it as a win.

He looks out to the sea, the glitter of the moon on the surface, so vast and swallowing. The cold is perishing, here. A lonely stretch of rock and wrath.

Here, Eames can ask what couldn’t be asked, sitting inside the warm, homely cave of the Taylor farmhouse.

That voice, recorder beep, _Now, why would I tell you that, Mr Marić?_

“Why didn’t you just sell me out, Arthur?” Eames asks. “Why – they thought we were important to each other but I’m not – you could have told them.”

Arthur scoffs, a _pshaw_ like the waves before them and between the breaths of the sea, Eames can sense his defensiveness, frosty in the air.

“I told them you were in Mombasa. How else do you think they contacted you?” Arthur shrugs, impassive, impatient. “I just conveniently forgot everything else I’d ever read about you.”

“But why? I don’t –”

“Why do _you_ think I didn’t give you up, Eames?” Arthur asks, sharp like a gull’s piercing call.

It isn’t a rhetorical question, but Eames wishes to all hell that it was. He doesn’t want to give voice to the gnawing worry in his chest.

“Because…” he tries.

“Yes?”

Arthur turns where he stands, so that he is finally facing Eames properly.

Half his face is in shadow, and the other half thrown into blurry relief by the moon. Stark against his cheek, that hooked red scar the length of his eye. His hair is damp with sea spray, curling on his head and begging to be run through with gentle fingers.

He looks defiant and dangerous, like this. At home and at sea.

Eames blinks, rapid and stung.

“Please don’t be in love with me, Arthur.”

The words escape him in a rush, a shameful oil spill. Eames winces at his own vanity and he half expects Arthur to punch him.

Arthur doesn’t punch him.

Instead, he does the most curious thing. His frown creases clean at the edges, splitting like moonbeams through clouds into a radiant, mocking grin.

A laugh tickles the chasm between them and Arthur shakes his head, reaches out and puts his hands on Eames’ shoulders. Eames nearly buckles under their weight.

“You’re a real piece of work, Matthew Forrest,” Arthur says snidely.

Then he lets go of Eames’ shoulders, sidling past him on the rocks so close that Eames feels his breath on his cheek, before making his way back towards the car.

For a lengthy blushing moment Eames waits, idly staring at the choppy water as if hoping to be swept away.

Then he says, loudly,

“I don’t like it when you call me that.”

When he looks back over his shoulder, neck stiff from the cold, Arthur has stopped and is staring at him with deciphering curiosity.

“You’ll never not be him, Eames,” Arthur says cruelly. “Whatever you call yourself.”

Eames recoils from that, like a badger to its sett.

“What do you know about it?” he snaps in harsh consonants. “You’ve had the same name your whole goddamn life.”

If Arthur is surprised Eames knows that, he knows better than to show it. His smile hasn’t faded yet; it’s a melancholy thing, that pasty rosebud twist of his mouth.

“It’s my name,” he says simply. “It’s just a word, Eames.”

Eames barks a cold sound, a _ha_ like water on rock.

“Nothing is just a word, _darling.”_

He’d thought he was aiming at Arthur, then, yet he feels it cut deep into his own heart. He’s not sure why.

All he knows is that Arthur doesn’t look in the least bit hurt by the bite in his voice. If anything, he seems bolstered by it.

“Come on,” he says, like an adventurous child. “We should make a start. It’ll be daylight soon.”

With that, Arthur turns back and walks steadily towards the higher embankment, where the car awaits them.

Eames watches him go, feeling lost and ever so slightly afraid, full to the brim with more questions than before.

He follows slowly, his hands in his pockets and his heart in his shoes.

|*|

Eames lied to his mum for the first time when he was fifteen years old.

Late bloomer, all things considered.

 _I don’t know where he is,_ he said, hands in his pockets; blood tacky like glue between his fisted fingers.

|*|

**EAMES | jackdaws that do not clatter**

|*|

**coda | fourth | arthur**

It will be autumn, wet windows and soggy streets. The sky in a temper and the roads swollen; nettle beds where once roses grew.

It will be autumn, and Arthur will clutch his ill-chosen coat around himself, scowling at the sidewalk.

The key for the lock to his apartment will stick and he’ll stomp rain and mud all over the hallway, dropping sodden clothes item by item en-route to the shower without even turning the light on. He’ll stand shivering as his extremities are scalded by the warm water.

Eventually, he’ll lean out of the steam spray to pull at the light cord. It will click loudly, the light coming on weak LED, blue grey over the white and chrome surfaces.

Across the room, he’ll catch sight of his reflection in the mirror, unforgiving, the way all bathroom mirrors are.

His hair plastered to his forehead, pink skin; the puckered white scar near his collar bone from a stray bullet and the faded Lichtenstein lines of electric sparks. A deep, hooked scar under his eye, still dark, always there.

He’ll turn away, turn his face into the water as if it might wash away his markings, leave him new again.

The water won’t go cold, so it will be his own choice when he finally steps out, dries himself off and realises he hasn’t even put the heating on yet.

The towel rail will be cold, like all the other rooms.

He’ll walk butt naked through the apartment, to the boiler to reset the heating. He’ll think nothing of the living room light being on, nor the extra coat hanging on the rack that he hadn’t noticed before. It will only make him roll his eyes.

Arthur will smooth his hair under his hands, tie his towel loosely around his hips and finally go to the bedroom.

He will stand in the doorway, breathe loudly through his nose at his intruder and say,

“Get your shoes off my bed.”

Eames, sitting on his pillows, back to the headboard with his legs stretched out before him, will toe his shoes off, never breaking eye contact, like the leery asshole he is.

He’ll look – _good._ He’ll be even more tanned than usual, his scruff nicked to a thin layer of shadow on his jaw and his hair will be scraped back off his face with wet gel. He’ll smile, and it won’t be a smirk, not really.

He’ll look Arthur up and down lazily, appreciatively; all the time in world, and he’ll hum approvingly.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking,” Eames will say, delicate vowels surrounded by cushion consonants.

 _Dangerous,_ Arthur will want to say.

 _Oh really,_ Arthur will want to say.

 _I’ll alert the media,_ Arthur will want to say.

Arthur won’t say anything, though.

He’ll step bolder into the room, and he won’t cross his arms over his chest; they’ll hang useless by his sides, unthreatening.

“I realised,” Eames will say, as if the words pain him, as if he’s glad of their sting, “I wanted to disappoint you.”

Arthur will raise his eyebrows at that.

“Because that’s what I do,” Eames will insist, discomfited, vulnerable, distractingly so. His eyes will be big and his voice will be brave. “I disappoint people. Do it all the time. Sometimes on purpose.”

Arthur will laugh a little then, because he’ll know that already.

He’ll take a seat at the foot of the bed, and he’ll stare expectantly at Eames, waiting for more.

“I came to Croatia because I wanted to.”

Eames will say it very tenderly, and it shouldn’t be enough, but it will feel like enough.

Arthur won’t mean to reach out and fist Eames’ shirt, but he will. He’ll reach and grab and pull; he’ll press his mouth against Eames’ so hard there won’t be room for surprise.

Just Arthur’s weight, unsteady over Eames and Eames’ fingertips bruising the valley of his spine. And then one of them will laugh and the other will join in. They will laugh with their tongues against their teeth and it will taste of caramel and soap.

Arthur will pull back, just enough to whisper into Eames’ open mouth,

“I have very high expectations of you, Mr Eames.”

Eames will kiss him, rough and yearning, mumbling back into the wet of Arthur’s words,

“Good.”

|*|

**manchester | england**

Having left the east coast far behind along with the hunting cries of the late-waking owls, Eames and Arthur arrive at the Crowne Plaza at Manchester Airport before midday.

Arthur offers to take the wheel before they pass into Lancashire, eyeing the road with weary resignation and a resilient self-righteousness. Eames doesn’t respond, other than to smirk and turn the heating up.

The traces of fleshy, vulnerable anxiety have all but vanished from the blank canvas collage of Eames’ mind, those speckle-hearted lingerings of strangeness in the English air that pours through the open window of the car.

He books them a room under the name Rowan Sampson, mostly out of curiosity as to what would happen.

Arthur side-eyes him with undeniable judgement as they pass into the generous twin suite. The stitches are out of his face, and even the bandages along his ribs are less than necessary by now.

He’s taller again, shoulders no longer bearing the weight they did a week ago.

“You can’t seriously think flying out of here will work,” he says, judgy little thing.

Eames has oddly missed his filthy scepticism.

“You can’t seriously doubt my passports after they got you and Cobb out of Hong Kong –”

“It’s not your forgeries that concern me, Eames,” Arthur drawls coolly. “It’s your ability to piss off a coma patient when the mood takes you, and your proclivity for kicking up a fuss in all the wrong continents.”

Eames smiles broadly, tossing their bags onto the suite table near the window and sweeping the room with casually routine caution.

Arthur, meanwhile, drops himself into a plush armchair that swallows him up in cushions.

“What are we doing about Djokovic?” he asks, his jaw cutting stubbornly.

Eames sinks into the other chair, his shrewd gaze narrowed.

 _“We_ shan’t be doing anything,” he says pointedly. _“You_ shall be on the next safe flight across the pond and I will be going to Kenya to sort my affairs.”

Arthur snorts an excellently derisive, incredibly _Arthurish_ laugh.

“By writing your last will and testament, I hope,” he says. “Eames, you’ll be walking into a warzone. I didn’t spend a week at the mercy of a bunch of asshole thugs just for you to get yourself killed on your own doorstep.”

There’s something in the glitter of Arthur’s eyes that ruffles Eames’ feathers.

“Well you’re not coming with me,” he says sharply, because that is completely out of the question, for reasons Eames isn’t too sure he has the correct vocabulary for. Not in English, and perhaps not in any language at all.

Arthur raises his eyebrows so high, Eames is surprised it isn’t painful.

“Of course I’m not,” he says, like it hadn’t even crossed his mind, which is a relief. Only, then he opens his mouth again and says, “We’re going to Paris.”

Eames almost, _almost,_ bursts out laughing, except for the part where there’s nothing funny at all about it.

“Are we _fuck_ going to Paris,” he barks. “I only just got us out of bleeding France in the first place. Do you realise how difficult it is for me to travel in Europe?”

Arthur has the gall to actually roll his eyes, then. He stares about the suite with a bored, point man’s gaze.

“Eames,” he says in a tart voice, “With a record like yours, travelling anywhere is difficult.”

Unfortunately, this is quite true, so Eames has no choice but to shut up and let Arthur speak.

“You’ll be fine. You’ll have our new passports ready in what, three days tops?”

He waits, then, like a prim schoolteacher for Eames to nod, which he does with utmost reluctance.

He can’t help being excellent, after all, and Arthur should know better than to doubt him on it.

“Well then,” Arthur says brusquely. “We stay here for a few days, make plans, lie low. I’ll call Ariadne and we’ll head out –”

“Ariadne?” Eames scoffs loudly. Arthur’s face is blank, but all Eames can look at is that dark red half-moon under his eye. It stands out so bold against his pale cheek. “Why, pray tell, would we call her?”

That’s when Arthur folds his arms, looking more like himself than Eames has seen this past fortnight. For the first time he looks that delicious combination of kissable and punchable in equal measure.

“Because,” he says smugly, “We’re going to get Djokovic locked up.”

“Excuse me?” Eames splutters.

“We’re –”

“I heard you,” Eames interrupts, thoroughly apprehensive. “And what does little Ariadne have to do with that exactly?”

Arthur’s brow furrows. He casts about himself as if seeking moral support and Eames tries not to be offended.

“Do you seriously not pay attention to anyone other than yourself?” he asks, which Eames does not dignify with a response. “Ariadne was on the team that took down Eli Yaxley. That exposed Ingrid Isher. That got the Matuscheks caught. She’ll know who can help us get him caught and trust me, it will be a lot cleaner than killing him.”

“I wasn’t planning on killing him,” Eames says hastily, and he doesn’t like the soft edge of Arthur’s eyes, then.

He can feel a flush in his cheeks that only darkens when Arthur says,

“No, but I would.”

Eames doesn’t doubt him. To be perfectly honest, half the reason Eames wouldn’t kill Djokovic would be because that treat belongs to Arthur.

“As is your right, I suppose,” he says, trepidation on his tongue and he eyes Arthur’s edges.

“Yes, _Matthew,_ it is,” Arthur says and Eames flinches despite himself, because he wasn’t lying, he hates that name on Arthur’s tongue worse than anything.

If Arthur sees it, he doesn’t react. Simply stands up, brushing away imaginary dust from his clothes and continues,

“Now, will you order us some food? I’m having a shower.”

He’s almost at the bathroom when Eames’ brain catches up with him and he calls over his shoulder,

“What do you want?”

Arthur simply shuts the door behind himself with a click, and Eames snarls several choice curses after him. _This_ is why he should’ve let the boy rot in Zagreb. His snooty-nosed posturing and his pointed silences and his ever so snippish –

He picks up the phone on the desk, taps in to the reception and peruses the menu left open on the bedside.

A bubbly young woman’s voice answers, and he briskly runs through a few options, throwing in a bottle of red for good measure, and the young woman remains perfectly charming despite his curt manner, for which he only feels slightly guilty.

He can hear the chitter of water in the bathroom, pretends he isn’t listening for the sound of Arthur falling over and sprawls moodily in his armchair with his mind far across oceans.

It’s a little while before he realises, he hadn’t needed Arthur to answer his question.

Something discomfiting sits heavy in his chest at that thought, a dry throat cough in his lungs. He slinks into his room with his shoulders a little hunched and doesn’t come out again until the food arrives.

|*|

Eames lost his virginity when he was fourteen years old.

His name was Harvey, but everyone called him David.

He was short for nineteen; had a lot to prove and knew how to do it.

|*|

**manchester | england**

“We’d have to get the Eurostar,” Eames says later that evening.

If he can’t change Arthur’s mind about bloody Paris, the least he can do is get them there in one piece.

Arthur looks up from his notebook, blinking.

“That’ll take longer,” he points out with his usual sunny optimism.

Eames rolls his eyes. He’ll take the faff of travelling to London any day of the week.

“Security’s shit, though,” he replies, settling back into his seat and doodling more shorthand across his left palm, little thin cut lines of blue biro spelling out sentences he memorized a lifetime ago. Arthur lets out a puff of disgruntlement. “What?”

“Do you remember the freight train in the first level of the Fischer Job?” Arthur asks in a voice that sounds oddly _pondering._

Eames isn’t sure what direction Arthur is trying to derail this conversation in, but he doubts he’ll like it.

“Vividly,” he drawls.

“Hmm,” Arthur agrees.

Then he shuts peacefully up, like that’s the end of it.

Eames waits as patiently as he can, which is to say, he stares hard at Arthur’s face for a few seconds.

“Why?” he asks.

Arthur’s a little pink from the radiators bleeding up the walls, stifling the hotel suite. He’s folded up around his notebook like mid-job Arthur, that delicious busy-burning expression, purposeful, muscle-memory movements.

“I was so mad at you for taking that job,” he says.

Eames snorts.

“I could tell.”

Arthur flashes his teeth, wry and rueful.

“I knew you’d encourage him. I didn’t think it was possible and I knew you’d fill his head with all kinds of ideas.”

Eames grins, shrugging innocently because there’s no denying it. He _had_ thought it was possible, and he _had_ filled Cobb’s head with a few too many ideas. Even though he was pretty sure Cobb had long cracked by then, he liked the man’s enthusiasm for the dream. Even with his pissing around and shying from the details of the job, he was a good extractor.

It always baffled him, that Arthur stuck around. No-nonsense Arthur, who was direct and focused and awfully clever, who was the prize pony of point men, who wore boring blazers and flashy ties.

“What about the train?” he asks, rather than pointing out that all those ideas he stuffed into Cobb’s head had turned into one of the most lucrative jobs of their careers.

Arthur twitches one shoulder in a strange gesture of apathy, as if he’s forgotten his original point, or perhaps finds it no longer relevant.

“Just strange,” he says. “What we bring into the dream when we least expect it.”

True, of course. Eames tries not to nod in agreement.

Disturbing as it was, _unwelcome_ as it was, dear Mallorie showing up like she had done wasn’t entirely unexpected. She was a force of nature in life, and for all his faults Cobb had clearly loved her ferociously. There was no questioning the damage losing her would do.

There are other things, though, that he supposes won’t ever be explained to them. Well, maybe to Arthur. Cobb probably owes the poor sod that much.

Eames has never had a face show up in his dream unexpectedly, not a _PASIV_ dream, thank Christ.

But occasionally, just occasionally, he’ll smell salt in the air, or see conifer trees where there should be cherry blossoms, and once or twice, there’s been a robin perched just shy of too close to him as he’s worked a mark.

“I suppose so,” Eames replies vaguely, and Arthur’s eyes flash to him, curious coins in his flushed face. “So, the Eurostar it is, then. You can sort accommodation though, darling, because I don’t have any friends in Paris anymore.”

“You have Ariadne,” Arthur says tartly, and Eames categorically does not rise to the bait.

“Djokovic’s been living outside Beograd for the past few years. He left when his brother-in-law got put away, but they’ve always operated best out of Serbia. Croatia was his getaway, he’ll be downright miffed we spoiled it for him.”

“Oops,” Arthur says unapologetically. “Have you ever worked with Eden before?”

Eames frowns, cocking his head.

“No, she uses Mariska when she needs a forger because she’s a snob. Why?”

“Just considering our options.”

“Well, you can strike Eden off the list.”

Arthur throws him a tiresome look across the room.

“Don’t be petty.”

“I’m not working with –”

“You’ll work with an arms-dealing murderer, but you won’t work with Eden? You remember her, right? Home-baking, extractor soccer mom? She has like, four kids.”

“Sounds like a reckless, neglectful mother to me,” Eames snips bitterly.

“Don’t project,” Arthur retorts with a laugh, and Eames opens his mouth wide, before folding up tight.

Arthur closes his eyes, sighing very quietly and says, “I didn’t mean that.”

Eames looks away, feeling prickly and defensive for almost no reason at all.

It’s nothing more than he would usually expect from Arthur; hell, a piece of him feels relieved to hear Arthur snarking at him. He’s just feeling raw and vulnerable; he can’t seem to parry the blows as well as he normally does around Arthur right now.

Arthur says his name, and Eames stares at the boring hotel art on the far wall. Not even at four stars can they seem to do better than a bad homage to Klimt, and the rosy gold colouring is making him nauseous.

There’s movement out of the corner of his eye, and when he looks around Arthur has moved closer.

He’s sitting on the corner of the coffee table, close enough that Eames could reach out and touch him if he wanted to, touch his hands clasping his moleskin notebook and his face cut to pieces and stuck back together with Eames’ hasty handiwork.

Arthur cocks his head, and Eames can see very faintly the lines of past smiles around his eyes.

“Eames,” he says, all business and boldness. “I think I need to tell you something.”

Eames’ eyebrows shoot so high up his forehead, he’s honestly surprised he doesn’t strain something.

“No, you don’t,” he corrects the younger man, a brittle laugh in his throat. Arthur smirks, and Eames definitely doesn’t like _that_ look on his face, all knowing and superior. “Some things are better left unsaid, don’t you think? Gosh, it’s warm in here. I’m going to open a window.”

He moves to get up, and Arthur’s hand takes hold of his wrist, keeps it pinned downwards and it’s enough to stall Eames in his seat, to catch his breath in his chest. He doesn’t like this, not at all.

Arthur’s eyes are soft. _Arthur_ is soft, soft all over and he always has been, really, but not like this, not to _Eames._

That’s why Arthur’s so much fun, because he doesn’t soften up, doesn’t fall foul to Eames’ teasing or his flirting or his bullying, Arthur’s _immune_ to it.

“Arthur, I really think you should –”

“Ask me, Eames,” Arthur says, so earnest, in that exact same voice he said between the waves.

_You’re a real piece of work, Matthew Forrest._

He’s close enough to feel his warmth in this oil spill of a room, close enough to do stupid things that Eames will regret before he’s even finished doing them. Arthur looks like he’s holding his breath.

His eyes are worried, and his mouth is pink, and he says,

“Go on,” like a double-dare with cream on top.

“Are you,” Eames says, as loudly as he dares, barely more than a whisper in the radiator. “I mean, do you?”

Tiny, darling dimples appear in Arthur’s face. He looks so fucking young, so devastatingly _lovely_ that Eames thinks he might spoil him if he even takes too deep a breath.

“Are you in love with me?” he asks, quickly, ripping off the plaster in a sting of skin and Arthur, well.

Arthur _laughs._

“No, you narcissistic motherfucker,” he chuckles, so close Eames feels it on his face. His expression creases at all the edges, he’s grinning, he looks so goddamn pleased with himself. “God, you’re an egotistical maniac. I am not in love with you.”

There is no logical explanation for why that hurts, but it does.

“Then I don’t understand, Arthur,” Eames snaps, wrenching his arm out of his grip and standing sharply.

Arthur looks up at him, then, with his doting dimples and his pink mouth grinning, and his eyes are at Eames’ crotch level and Eames has to move, has to back away until he’s closer to the blasting radiator which is at least cooler than being near the furnace of Arthur’s laughter.

“Don’t understand what?” Arthur asks, the way he probably asks the Cobb children things at bedtime when he’s babysitting, or whatever other saintly things he does in his spare time.

“This!” Eames shouts; doesn’t mean to but his arms are waving around manically, and his temper is fluttering under his skin. “You, ending up in Croatia. Djokovic or, or all of it. Why you didn’t just give me up, why you even got caught in the first place because there’s no way you didn’t let it happen, Arthur. You’re too clever for that.”

Arthur leans his hands back on the coffee table, his legs crossed so casually, surveying Eames like a painting for sale, or maybe, just maybe, a puppy he’s considering adopting.

“Because it was your turn anyway,” he says, like that solves everything, like it’s an obvious answer, the only answer possible.

“My _what?”_ Eames splutters, still several decibels louder than is entirely appropriate.

However frustrating Arthur’s being, he _is_ still in some stage of recovery that Eames should probably respect.

“To get me out of trouble,” Arthur shrugs easily, cat-stretching over the table as he leans further back. “Seeing as how I got you out of Michigan in one piece, I th –”

Eames brain, heart and stomach all do a series of backflips, arrhythmic and clenching, and a sound garbles out of him he has definitely never made before. He backs right up to the radiator, breathless as he snaps,

“You? You’re the one that called Walsham?”

Arthur pulls a pained expression, even more reminiscent of mid-job Arthur than his notebook.

“Please,” he grumbles. “Like Walsham would have known what to do. The man got tailed across two continents without noticing.”

The radiator Eames is pressed against is burning the backs of his legs. He’s incredibly aware of the expression on his face, and his lack of control over it.

Arthur’s not wrong, Walsham _is_ an offence to criminals worldwide.

Eames had assumed Walsham had been involved, seeing as it was his job that landed him in lockup in the first place.

“You,” he says, still wide eyed, tapping his bare fingers on the scorching radiator, and is about to say something disgraceful and admiring when a thought finally strikes him. “That’s why Djokovic thought you and I were…he must have found out you got me out. He thought we were…”

Arthur’s half-smile is very condescending, which doesn’t seem fair. If Eames is only getting half the information, he can’t be expected to keep up.

“That was my thinking, too.”

“You got me out of Michigan,” Eames says again, just to be sure, just to try it out on his tongue; grateful and disbelieving.

Arthur rolls his eyes in a less than gentlemanly manner.

“Yes, Eames. I got you out of Michigan.”

“But, why?”

Another eyeroll, but at least this one is accompanied by a throaty burst of laughter.

He tosses his notebook on the sofa and rubs a hand down his face, wincing as it passes over the healing scar on his cheek. Eames pretends not to notice.

“I guess I thought your uses as a forger would probably go to waste inside a federal penitentiary. And after the whole Callie Shaw debacle I figured it was my turn –”

There it is again, that snarling stutter in Eames’ chest, those words he doesn’t understand.

“What the bloody hell are you on about?” he demands. “What turns?”

Arthur looks amused, and cold, and marvellous, and Eames hates it.

“It’s what we do, isn’t it,” he says and there is absolutely no hint of a question in his voice.

“Is it?” Eames cries, and figures someone would have given him the message by now if that were remotely true.

Arthur’s lips twitch again.

“Is it not?”

“Don’t even start,” Eames grunts, leaning heaver onto the radiator even as it burns through his jeans.

There’s something grounding in the pain, a sharp alertness, a wakefulness that is some sort of comfort as he swims through the syrupy mess of this conversation.

“How long exactly have we been _taking turns?”_

In better circumstances, there’d be a good joke in that.

“Since our first job together,” Arthur says with practiced comfort, like this again is an obvious answer, the only possible answer. Like he’s playing a game he wrote the rules for. “You came and got me from the warehouse.”

Eames doesn’t much think on bad jobs, doesn’t waste the energy because there lies the grief of failure, and he is not one to linger in that styx of regret when he can help it. He does it enough by accident as it is.

“As opposed to letting you get shot and burned to death?” he sneers.

There wasn’t exactly another option, was there?

Arthur was left behind, and Eames was the first to hear about Beal’s betrayal. He _had_ to go get him. There was nothing noble about it, it was just how it happened.

Before he can explain this, though, he is assaulted by yet another prickly, infuriating realization.

“You took Ramsay out, didn’t you?” he asks.

Arthur’s smile is deceptively innocent. It’s the dimples that do it. The smile he’s giving Eames now is no bloody different to the one he gave Mary Taylor when she complimented him on his carrot peeling skills back in Whitby.

“That was bloody dangerous, Arthur, he was –”

_An assassin, a psychopath, a friend of every villain north of the South Pole._

Arthur beats him to it, though, dimples and scowls.

“You took a bullet for me, Eames.”

Eames sinks down to the floor, his back sliding along the radiator as he laughs.

“By accident!” he reminds him, shaking his head.

He runs his fingers through his hair, feeling sticky and stretched, a mound of uncooked dough left to bake in the sun.

Arthur mirrors him, slipping off the table with those silent feline limbs and folding himself neatly on the carpet, his back against the table leg. He raises his eyebrows, lips pursed.

“You accidentally stepped between me and Thaddeus Knave’s glock?”

Well of course it sounds ridiculous when he puts it like _that._

“I pushed you out of the way!” Eames cries. “Getting shot was a – a by-product of not being quick enough –”

“You’re so full of shit,” Arthur scoffs.

“It’s true!”

“Then why did you come to Croatia?”

“I – because – because –” Eames opens his mouth around a few silent vowels, waving a hand airily above his head like he might catch it with the fireflies, the right thing to say, the real thing to say.

He doesn’t know what it is, though.

He thinks about the Snow Leopard waving those photos on her bed, Arthur’s scowl and the bend of his body strung up, contorted with pain, and all he can feel is the hot, icy rage of need to act, to do something, anything.

It’s stronger now, with Arthur here, than it was back in Mombasa at the time.

“You didn’t have to,” Arthur says, and the fucker has the audacity to sound _smug_ about it.

“Yes, I did,” Eames splutters. Of course he did.

Didn’t he?

“Why?” Arthur asks, despite Eames’ prayer to every deity for him to just let it be. “Djokovic knew he couldn’t touch you in Africa. If you hadn’t shown up, eventually they’d have dumped my body in the Sava and your problems would’ve been over.”

 _Don’t say that,_ Eames wants to snarl, but he doesn’t want to have to explain that any more than he wants to explain this.

Instead, he changes tactic.

“Cobb would –”

Arthur lets out a strangled yell, as if he’s finding Eames just as exasperating as Eames is finding him, which surely isn’t humanly possible.

“You didn’t do it because of Cobb,” he snaps. “You don’t care about Cobb and you certainly aren’t afraid of him.”

Well, at least Arthur’s got that much right. The only frightening thing about Cobb is his capacity for self-delusion, and even that’s mostly disappeared thanks to his daytime job as most-improved-father-of-the-year.

Unfortunately for Eames, Arthur has more to say.

“You could have stayed in Mombasa gambling away your money and let me rot. Djokovic would have circled like a buzzard for a while until he gave up and he’d never have found you if you actually just put some effort into hiding from him.”

Arthur’s staring at him expectantly. His eyes, that melted treacle shade of judgement so fierce Eames cows under it every time. He opens his mouth to say something righteous and insulting, but all that comes out is,

“I wasn’t going to leave you there.”

“Why?” Arthur asks, the same way he probably used to ask his parents why the sun was bright, or snow was cold.

“Why does it matter?” Eames asks, and he hopes to fuck that’s what Arthur’s parents used to say back, too, just to spite the inquisitive little shit. “Jesus. I got you out, didn’t I? Now, we can run with your truly, astoundingly dangerous plan, _or,_ you can go home like a good boy. Djokovic can hunt me down all he likes, and you can stop feeling obligated to look out for me so much.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Arthur mutters, reaching for his notebook and opening it so he can continue to peruse his fascinating little details on Djokovic’s ascent to power, or all the ways Eames’ shirt is offensive, or whatever it is he scribbles in that damn thing. “We’re going to Paris and that’s final.”

He grabs a pen from the coffee table, still leaning back against it like he plans to sleep there for the night, and promptly ignores the death glare Eames is throwing him.

Eames makes several loud huffing sounds before getting to his feet and making for the bathroom.

He hovers momentarily in the doorway, looking back at Arthur’s profile, at the unsliced side of his face, and says, sly and only half-joking,

“…and you’re absolutely sure you’re not in love with me?”

Arthur’s dimples dent his face so briefly, Eames might have imagined it.

“Don’t be an asshole,” he repeats, nose dipping closer to the page.

“That wasn’t a no,” Eames says as he backs his way into the bathroom, pulling a towel from the rail and shutting the door behind him, reluctantly cutting off Arthur’s short, stuttering laughter.

|*|

The last time Eames saw his mother, he was twenty-four years old.

His bags were packed, and soon England’s bluster would be but bad dreams.

 _Bye then,_ he said, but she didn’t look up from her wine glass.

|*|

**interlude | dominick**

“Philippa Marie Cobb, we are _not_ done. Get back down here this instant!” Dominick Cobb bellows from his position of precarious authority from the bottom of the staircase.

His daughter turns around, one foot planted firmly on the top step. Her eyes are blazing, that righteously hormonal fury only teenagers can muster.

Dom struggles to control his face; if she stomps her foot, he’s _definitely_ going to start laughing.

“You’re being so lame!” Phillipa retorts hotly, hands balled to fists at her sides.

Dom has learned his lesson about making jokes at his daughter’s despairing expense, even when they are a little deserved. Still, every young teen needs reminding of their family pecking order from time to time. It’s the nature of things.

“Do you think this attitude is going to make me _more_ likely to let you go?”

 _“Everyone_ is going!” Philippa cries, tears of anger in her eyes and her chin wobbling. “I already told Emily yes!”

“And you told me that your chores were done,” Dom replies, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

He glances at his watch with a dramatic flourish of one hand.

“Looks like you still have forty-five minutes to get them done before I make up my mind.”

Philippa is visibly torn between her immediate desire to go out with her friends and her ultimate goal as a teenager to defy her father’s every demand.

“It’s your choice,” Dom shrugs, as if he doesn’t care.

“Uhh!” Philippa shouts, flouncing away, her hair swishing over her shoulder as she goes.

Relieved, Dom lets his guard down.

Another successful day convincing his daughter he won’t bow to her every whim in a heartbeat. He’s dreading the day she figures out just how little effort it would require of her to break his will, regardless how many chores she’s done. He feels it in his chest every time she turns those sad, glassy eyes on him.

Luckily, he’s saved from the task of following her quite yet by his cell ringing.

It’s a private number, and while this doesn’t cause the rush of fear it once would have, he does still take it into his office before answering.

He closes the door behind him, the room bright, large sunny windows that are slowly fading the book spines on the shelves.

“Cobb,” he answers, wondering if his extractor-voice was always so _stressed-father-voice,_ too.

 _“Mr Cobb,”_ a familiar, angular voice replies. _“It’s Greta.”_

“Greta,” he says, more pleasantly. “This is an unexpected surprise.”

 _“As opposed to an expected one?”_ she retorts, a little playfully. _“I’m afraid this is a business call, Mr Cobb.”_

“I’m not exactly in the business anymore,” Dom reminds her carefully.

He always liked Greta, doesn’t want to push her away the way he might easily push other dreamers.

_“Yes, but your Arthur is, is he not?”_

Dom sighs, wondering if Arthur will ever not belong to him in the eyes of dreamshare.

Wonders, too, if Arthur secretly hates him for it.

“Arthur is,” he says purposely. “Do you need to contact him?”

He and the point man are not exactly the close companions they once were. Inevitable, perhaps, that parting of ways.

They were close, once. Arthur’s probably still the closest friend Dom ever had after Mal.

Like all close friends, of course, Dom took him for granted until it was too late. Now, they are friends of past selves, and he is no longer _Cobb’s Arthur._

Who is Dom to speak for him, now?

 _“I think it’s you who needs to contact him,”_ Greta says in an odd, formal voice.

Dom frowns at that, sun burning tight on his cheeks through the glass.

“What do you mean?”

_“He’s just had some sort of run in with a nasty Serbian crook. When exactly did he and Eames partner up? Wouldn’t have called that one.”_

Greta makes a clucky sound, disapproving and exasperated.

“What?” is all Dom can think to say.

Luckily, Greta seems to misunderstand his confusion.

_“Oh, I know Arthur tagged along with you all those years, it’s no surprise he’d find another set of coattails to latch onto. But Eames? Man doesn’t have a shred of loyalty in his bones, I’m surprised he’s gone along with it.”_

She waits, then, clearly for Dom’s expert opinion and he hasn’t felt so lost since James found out about reincarnation and immediately started seeing Mal in every ladybug and bumblebee he found.

Dom takes a steadying breath.

Arthur? And _Eames?_

Contrary to Greta’s belief, Dom doesn’t think it’s the unlikeliest pair in the world. Despite their differences, Dom never trusted a job more than the ones with Arthur and Eames, if only because their proclivity to outdo each other made them work twice as hard.

Still, he doubts she’s entirely right. She can’t be.

Eames has no real allegiances, and Arthur, well. Arthur said it himself in Bangkok, five years ago:

_I did it for her. I follow you for her, but I don’t owe anybody a goddamn thing. I sure as hell don’t need you._

“Where are you getting this from?” Dom asks instead of replying.

Greta huffs impatiently.

_“I did want him for a job. Amie Sharpe found out from one of her cleaners. Sampson something.”_

“I don’t exactly count Amie Sharpe’s word as law,” Dom scoffs distrustfully. “And I don’t know any Sampson.”

 _“Silver spoon type,”_ Greta mutters, dismissing his doubts as easily as he dismissed her questions. _“So, you’re saying Arthur and Eames aren’t the new Cobb and Arthur?”_

“Consider me uncomfortable discussing Arthur’s business decisions with other people,” Dom says hastily, turning his back to the window.

_“And you won’t be helping him with the Serbian trafficker?”_

Dom pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Why do you care?”

 _“Because,”_ Greta drawls, _“With the Danube off limits, I don’t have a job for him, but I do have some advice on Emil Djokovic he might find useful.”_

Dom is officially perturbed.

“Why do you want to help Arthur?”

 _“It doesn’t matter,”_ Greta replies breezily. _“Go back to your knitting, Mr Cobb, or whatever it is you retired folk do these days.”_

She ends the call before Dom can even decide whether it’s worth being offended by that one.

He tosses the phone onto his desk, full of something bitter, like frustration bottled in his lungs.

Upstairs, Philippa has either made a start on her chores, or has hired an elephant to do them for her. Clunking footsteps pace back and forth with repetitive stomps.

Dom leans back against the windowsill, surveying the room at large.

He doesn’t think Arthur would appreciate him inviting himself into whatever the hell’s going down in central Europe.

At the same time, he can’t just ignore it. If Arthur’s in trouble, Dom wants to help.

He’s left with very few options, each one less appealing than the next. There is, however, one person who might have answers. She’s one of the few dreamers actually saved in his phone, not out of regular contact so much as soft nostalgia.

The time difference is less than ideal, yet she picks up quickly, sounding amused.

_“If you’re calling about Arthur, I’m already on it.”_

Dom laughs, stooping down into his desk seat. Outside, two blackbirds are bickering on the lawn.

“I could be calling about you.”

 _“You’re not,”_ Ariadne chuckles. _“But that’s alright. What do you want to know?”_

“Whatever you can tell me,” Dom says truthfully.

Ariadne lets out a long-suffering sigh.

 _“Well it’s not much,”_ she replies, sounding displeased. _“He contacted me yesterday. He says he’s fine but I’m reserving judgement. He’s holed up in England right now. I think Eames is with him.”_

Dom blinks, rubbing his eyes as he tries to process. He can hear Ariadne tapping on a laptop, faint little patters of fingertips.

“Eames won’t be with him,” Dom says assuredly. “Eames never travels to England. He hasn’t gone back there in about twenty years.”

 _“Is Eames old enough to have not gone back in twenty years?”_ Ariadne snorts.

She speaks with the same dry confidence she did as a student; a possessed, energetic interest in her words, even when she’s not being serious.

“Probably not,” Dom agrees. “I don’t know.”

He stalls momentarily, before he pushes his question out from between his teeth.

“Are they working together?”

 _“No more than usual,”_ Ariadne replies, voice of a shrug. _“Why?”_

“No reason,” Dom lies, feeling a stain in his cheeks that doesn’t quite make sense, not when he’s alone in his office, in the company of boxes and arch files. “Will you get Arthur to call me, when you see him?”

 _“Oh my god,”_ Ariadne cries, long sarcastic vowels that crackle across the Atlantic Ocean, stretching between them in her laughter. _“This is worse than ninth grade, passing notes between Becky Chase and Alex Reidel.”_

“Ariadne,” Dom says, pleading.

_“Yes, I will. Alright? I’m sure he’s fine.”_

Dom doesn’t hold in the sigh; it’s silent, peppered with a long-unfamiliar anxiety. It’s been a while since he felt the true effects of not being _involved_ anymore.

“Thanks,” he says even though he’s pretty sure she’s lying about Arthur being OK. “Take care of yourself.”

 _“I always do,”_ she says, which is possibly another lie. _“Bye Cobb.”_

“Bye, Ariadne,” Dom replies, dropping the phone by his side in a defeated slump.

Above him, Philippa’s elephant clobbering has stopped. His brow pinches in a frown.

“Phillie?” he calls up to the ceiling. “Are you still tidying?”

There’s a clattering sound, followed by a badly muffled shout.

Dom smiles, just a little. He can check on her soon.

One day, she’s going to figure him out.

Not yet though.

|*|

**manchester, england**

Arthur looks different, after that.

Rather, perhaps, Eames sees him differently.

His hair is still dark, fluffy and untamed when not waxed into formation. His eyes, curious and hazel and harder than the young lines of his face.

The scar is still there, where it never was before, and will remain now for the rest of his life.

Eames still isn’t used to it, still feels a jolt of surprise at the sight of it. He wonders, idly and only to himself, if Arthur is surprised, too, when he looks in the mirror.

Nothing about the picture of them has changed, their thorny tendencies, their headbutting and their frosty disagreements. And yet, Eames feels like they’ve been recanvassed, that he’s seeing another image entirely; Monet’s waterlilies from the bridge instead.

He’s never put much thought into it, is the thing.

He’s only really known Arthur as a suffix; fairness be damned, he’s the latter half of _Cobb and_ whether he likes it or not. And Eames, he’s always liked Arthur more than Cobb, but there’s no denying he gets on better with Cobb.

Arthur, prickly hedgehog, those condemning eyes and that faithfully clever mind. As good in bed as everywhere else: annoyingly so, efficient and thorough.

He’s never put much thought into it, is the thing, and yet when he does, Eames realises that that, if anything, is the crux of it.

He didn’t put much thought into going back to the warehouse for Arthur in Tirana, or shoving him out of Knave’s way, or even stalling Callie Shaw in her tracks when she was gunning for Arthur’s throat.

 _And Berlin?_ His traitorous brain supplies, _What about then?_

That, Eames has to admit was excessive. He’d suspected the client of foul play right from the beginning, long before he’d gone after the assassins creeping along the back corridors of Arthur’s building; he’d seen the job through only because the alternative was, well.

Disappointing Arthur.

Eames shoves that thought aside with some violence, focusing instead on the train tickets in his hands.

Arthur has been disgruntled ever since agreeing to take the Eurostar to Paris, and his sulking has manifested in a lot of pointed silence and passive aggressive notetaking.

Eames isn’t above admitting there’s something weirdly hot about the way Arthur makes jotting things down in his little black book into some sort of punishing sport.

Not to mention the way he’d _baulked_ at the passport Eames had presented him with last night.

“You can’t be serious,” he’d said, waving his identity around between them like a dead mouse. “How did you even know about this one?”

“I have my sources,” Eames had shrugged. “You’re the one who wanted to go to Paris. And you _are_ so fetching when you speak French, _Bastien.”_

Despite all this, Eames is inclined to believe they have reached some greater level of understanding, to say the least.

He’s seen more of Arthur’s dimples in the last week than he thinks he might ever have before, not to mention how well versed he now is in Arthur’s breakfast routine.

It’s difficult to know what is sacred, when one’s life is spent invading other people’s most private thoughts and dreams, but the way Arthur brightens up at his first sip of a cup of lemon tea is possibly the most preciously guarded, most sacred thing, Eames has ever seen.

“Are you going to get arrested when we get to St Pancras?”

Eames looks up from the tickets he’s fanning in his hand to see Arthur with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He raises his eyebrows, relaxing into a pleasant, entirely unoffended demeanour.

“I really can’t tell if you’re concerned for my welfare or your own,” he replies.

Arthur visibly doesn’t appreciate the evasion.

“They’re not mutually exclusive concerns,” he says coolly. “Whatever deal you struck to get in at Dover won’t necessarily hold in the capital –”

“Christ, Arthur, I’m a dream thief, not Jack the Ripper,” Eames scoffs. “Nobody is coming after me. Not _here_ anyway. Paris, though –”

Arthur rolls his eyes, reaching to snatch the tickets out of Eames’ hand. He scowls at them.

“Why are we sitting together?” he demands, eyes wide with alarm.

Eames shrugs, smiling helplessly.

“I’m an excellent train buddy.”

“Eames, it’s dangerous en–”

“Oh, don’t be paranoid, darling. I’m trusting you to keep me out of trouble in France. The least you can do is trust me to get you from Manchester to London.”

Arthur’s face is less than trusting. Nonetheless, he does thrust the tickets back at Eames without tearing them up.

“You could at least have made them First Class,” he says sullenly.

Eames grins, pocketing the tickets and settling back in his seat at the table, which is still laid out with a decrepit scrabble board they’d pulled from a games cupboard in a nearby bar.

“Don’t be a snob,” he says. “Now, sit down. I’m ready for another go.”

Even as he takes a seat, Arthur runs a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Eames, you are never going to be ready for scrabble. You’re thirty years overdue a dyslexia test.”

Rather than rise to this, Eames just cracks his knuckles and wrists in preparation.

“No American spelling,” he reminds his opponent, waggling a finger at him.

“Like you can tell the difference,” Arthur mutters under his breath.

“Rude,” Eames retorts, as Arthur smirks at him. “I nearly won once.”

“You mean I ignored your more minor spelling infractions for one entire game?”

 _“Infractions?”_ Eames crows, banging his disapproving fist on the table. “Infractions! I am wounded. God, I bet you’re a nightmare at the Hanukkah table.”

Arthur stalls just long enough look utterly perplexed, then thrilled, then cross in such quick succession there’s no hiding it.

“It doesn’t quite work the same as Christmas, you know,” he says, flash of teeth like a good luck charm. “And we don’t play scrabble.”

Eames shrugs dolefully.

“Your loss,” he says. “We always played scrabble at Christmas.”

This is a lie, and Eames isn’t sure how Arthur knows that but it’s clear he does from the look in his eye as he pulls a letter out of the ratty bag.

“It’s a wonder you’re not better at it, then,” Arthur hums, holding up a faded B tile.

“Cheat,” Eames mumbles, pulling out a Q tile and promptly tossing it at the board.

Arthur snorts, apple cheeks bunched under his smiling eyes, the scar momentarily vanishing into the creases of his happiness.

They play for two hours, and Eames doesn’t even come close to winning once.

He doesn’t mind all that much.

The next morning, they get on a train at Manchester Piccadilly, and three hours later they’re in London.

|*|

**cadenza | two**

It was February, frostbitten windows, throats chafed with wool.

A lawyer without a conscience and a loan shark with too much to hide. No surprises there, of course.

Eames was called in late to the party, at the turning point, the one without return.

The extractor, Milton, was reluctantly grateful. Eames flew out within a half day of being asked, and for an only marginally higher fee than normal.

Thanks to a mishap with a Starbucks monstrosity and an exceedingly apologetic woman, he had to buy an extra jumper on his way in and made sure to find something even _he_ found questionable.

Waltzed in at four in the afternoon, magnanimous saviour.

“Don’t fret, here I am, chaps,” he greeted. “M’lady,” he added to the architect, Eliza, his favourite for a time.

They were working out of a warehouse, twelve inches of snow on the roof and no mention of heating to speak of.

It took less than half an hour for Arthur to crack.

“Eames, would it kill you to dress like you give a damn?”

He sounded what might have been unreasonably annoyed over an item of clothing, had it been anyone other than Arthur.

Eames just preened peacock relish, a ruffling rooster under that damning eye.

“Don’t you like The Rolling Stones?” he asked, swinging side to side in his desk chair with his legs splayed.

“That’s neither here nor there,” Arthur replied, which was as good a confession as any in Eames’ books.

“Now, is this any way to treat your knight in shining armour?” he teased, to absolutely no response whatsoever from Arthur.

The job was quick. The forgery, a whimpering penny of a man who shed tears like rain and retched ugly pleading sobs into his snot wet sleeves.

Afterwards, by happy coincidence, Eames found himself standing a scant few feet away from Arthur at the train station.

He knows Arthur heard him humming _Ruby Tuesday._ He knows, because Arthur’s mouth twitched, a deep stretch of his lips neither up nor down, as if suppressing simultaneously a grimace and a grin.

Eames, on the other hand, didn’t bother hiding it. He smiled, and the very air tasted of tooth-sting snow.

|*|

The first time Eames saw his father smack his sister, he was three years old.

He didn’t understand, was mostly bothered by the yelling outside the playroom.

Poppy cuddled him teddy bear tight and when he kissed her red cheek, the tears rolled down her face.

|*|

**london, england**

“Eames, you have a perfectly good underground system –”

“Come along, Arthur.”

“I don’t see why we can’t –”

“Hurry up, dear.”

“It’s _raining,_ Eames!”

“It’s _London,_ Arthur.”

Arthur huffs, and Eames can feel his eyes boring into his back as he walks down Euston Road.

It’s not exactly English standards of _raining._ Spitting maybe, or drizzling at worst. It’s not _raining._

Eames doesn’t think explaining this will go down well with Arthur, so he keeps it to himself and continues walking down the street.

 _“Eames,”_ Arthur’s still going, in that jabbery _And another thing!_ tone of his.

Euston Road isn’t terribly busy, but the summer holidays are clearly still in full swing and Eames quickly finds himself weaving through gaggles of tourists, their clusters growing in size and volume as they head towards the station.

It’s muggy, and all too quickly Eames can feel the sticky tack of sweat at his collar and under his arms.

Behind him, Arthur has fallen silent.

At the next crossing, Eames stops at the red man, traffic rumbling past and Arthur appears at his side looking cross.

“Where’s the fire?” he asks.

Eames furrows his brow in question.

“I have never seen you walk so fast without an armed tail on your heels.”

Eames snorts, shrugging one shoulder in a bashful _oh well_ gesture.

“It’s a London sickness,” he only half-jokes. “Never one for strolling through these streets.”

Arthur looks oddly disconcerted by that, as if he doesn’t walk at least three times faster than most people and insist he’s being _casual._

The lights change and they cross amidst the swarm. This time Arthur stays at Eames’ side.

“You never miss it?” he asks after a moment, without looking at him.

Eames suppresses the urge to retort with _probably about as much as you miss New Haven,_ but only because Arthur probably does miss his hometown in a backwards, belly-flop way.

Instead, he stares across the road and sighs,

“It’s a city of thieved streets,” he replies. “Half of what’s interesting about London can be found somewhere else, without the side order of colonial guilt.”

Artur makes a sound that might be laughter.

“Home’s still home,” he says, to Eames’ absolute horror.

“That’s the most sentimental tripe I’ve ever heard,” he scoffs, and it sounds defensive even to his own ears.

Arthur, who seems too busy taking in the architecture to notice, pulls a mouth-twist of dismissal.

“Did you grow up around here?” he asks facetiously.

“You know exactly where I grew up, Arthur,” Eames drawls and he can’t even bring himself to be annoyed by it. “You probably know which hospital I was born in.”

Arthur hums, his free arm swinging by his side as he walks, like a happy little tourist enjoying his holiday, despite his grumpy tour guide.

“Not the hospital,” he replies, which could be a lie.

The rain’s easing off, and the street is getting busier. Ahead, the stations lie in wait.

“See?” Eames huffs. “Straight bloody line. The amount of money this city must bleed out of idiots like you to get from one stop to the next is atrocious.”

Even as he says it, the contents of his stomach curdle and he winces.

 _“Right,”_ Arthur scoffs. _“Criminal._ As opposed to stealing millions of dollars in bonds and leaving idiots like me to pay for it.”

When Eames looks to the side, though, Arthur’s dimples are in full glorious display. His eyebrows are raised high in accusatory amusement and he actually bites his lip in a fetching grin.

“Yes,” Eames agrees heartily. “Exactly. Good honest criminality, take that over a corrupt transport system any day of the week.”

Arthur makes a scoffing, tongue-curl sound, and Eames swallows hard as he catches his eye.

“You really never miss it?”

The gods above must take mercy on Eames, then, because at that very moment, the light pattering of rain that’s tickling their faces grumbles high in the air, and the droplets start to grow heavy, trickling down their cheeks and soaking their shoulders.

Eames laughs, and Arthur makes a loud sound of dismay.

“Not in the slightest,” Eames chuckles, tipping his face upwards into the rain, so that it washes away the stress from his features like dirt from a window.

|*|

**cadenza | twelve**

It was December, holly and vines, the taste of ginger in the air like it was growing in the cracks of the pavement.

If Eames heard _Happy Holidays!_ one more time, he was going to shoot something. Probably one of Santa’s Little Helpers, peeking out of the shopping centre grotto with rosy apple cheeks and candy cane hats.

He was sitting on one of the Dad Benches, a few bags at his feet, looking excellently bored, the exact same as the fourteen other men he had clocked so far trailing after partners and children.

Loathsome as a stereotype could be, they were awfully reliable sometimes.

He played with his phone and supped a cold latte out of a takeaway cup stamped with gingerbread men and he kept his grumpy attention resolutely on the man at the hot chocolate stand serving marshmallow-whipped monstrosities with a disgusting amount of Christmas cheer.

Larry Chilton didn’t look like much, but of course that was how they all were. His hot chocolate might not have been worth more than shrapnel change, but the secrets inside his head were priceless.

It was December, Eames’ busiest month every year. Thirty-one days of high-alert, and as such he saw his intruder coming the moment he was within furthest range.

Arthur was looking particularly marvellous: royal colours in his suit and zero tolerance for the Santa Clauses jingling bells in his face.

There was nothing covert about his approach.

He walked with purpose, brow furrowed. Eames half-expected him to pull a pistol and shoot him right there.

Instead, Arthur came to an abrupt, deliberate halt at Larry Chilton’s stand, ordered two drinks and promptly brought them to Eames.

Shoving Eames’ belongings off the seat beside him, Arthur sat, leaned over, kissed his stubble and handed him a large cup of something that smelled divine and not in the least bit healthy.

Eames kissed Arthur’s cheek in return, cold skin on dry lips, rough, and said curiously,

“If I’d known this was our play, I’d have worn gayer shoes.”

“All your shoes are gay, Eames, it comes with the territory,” Arthur retorted dismissively. “You aren’t safe here.”

Eames blinked, Arthur’s words all but swallowed up by the clamour of sound ricocheting through the shopping centre. Arthur was yet to engage in the art of _joking_ as far as Eames was aware.

He stared back at Eames’ questioning expression, face carved up with angry worry.

“What makes you so sure?” Eames asked casually, leaving his latte at his feet and sipping his hot chocolate as he cast a glance around them with a bored, desperate expression of claustrophobia.

“You’re going to have to trust me,” Arthur said, trepidation like an extra vowel in every word.

Eames didn’t mean to, exactly, but in his internal debate, that moment of suspended time he found himself staring at Arthur’s mouth, that almond pink shape around a cavern of stern words.

“I’m not sure I do,” he said.

“Since when,” Arthur scoffed, which shouldn’t have been so surprising.

Eames blinked at him, wondering.

 _Did_ he trust Arthur? He didn’t trust anyone. If he was going to start, it wouldn’t be someone so openly loyal to another extractor. Especially not one that was as much of a prick as Dominick Cobb.

Then again, he didn’t _distrust_ Arthur, either. He could admit to that much.

“Eames, you have about an hour before Zachary Mollins gets within the city limits, and that’s only if I’m right. It’s up to you if you want to be here when he does, but I highly suggest vacating the country at your earliest convenience.”

He spoke briskly, not looking away from the monstrous window display in front of them. Eames cast his gaze up and down the rows of windows, listening to the clamour of shoppers.

“Aren’t you leaving, too?” he asked pointedly, his nose in his hot chocolate.

Arthur sipped his drink slowly, leaning back a little into the cold metal seat.

“Is that concern for my wellbeing I hear?” he asked in a sly tone. “I was planning to lead him on a merry chase.”

“That’s my line,” Eames replied, mouthful of cream, and he picked up one of his bags, dropping it into Arthur’s lap. “Alright then. Happy birthday, dear.”

“It’s not my –”

“Do shut up,” Eames interrupted, because he knew full well when Arthur’s birthday was, no doubt much to the younger man’s consternation. “It’s Versace, you can’t turn it down.”

Without more than a glance in Arthur’s direction, Eames stood, brushing down his jacket and walked quickly towards the east exit. He could feel Arthur’s eyes following him, accusatory or anxious. He didn’t dare turn to check.

|*|

**channel tunnel, north sea**

St Pancras Station is not quite packed when they reach it, the queues as regimented and trustworthy as any British establishment ever is.

They keep their faces tilted away from cameras, just in case, and Eames can feel Arthur’s distress like a spectre in the very few inches between them as they walk through security.

Eames doesn’t say it, but there’s a terrible symmetry at work, here.

His first real departure from England had been on the Eurostar, albeit from the less favourable Waterloo Station. It had been sunny, then, and the whole world had smelled of sugar and ground coffee.

He sat, shuddering in his seat, his face pressed hot to the window with his passport nearly bent in half in his hands. Beside him, an elderly French woman, who gave him a mint imperial, and her newspaper once she was done with it.

In many ways, it was the best and worst day of his life.

Eames doesn’t say any of this though.

Eames just takes hold of Arthur’s hand as they stand in the passport check queue, not realising he’s even doing it until Arthur’s thumb runs over his hand in slow circles. He looks at his companion, at his easy smile and the horrible cut in his cheek, the light smattering of freckles on his nose.

The passports go through, miracle of miracles, or maybe not. Not even Arthur begrudges Eames his smug smirk when they get to the departure area without a hitch.

The platform is swamped, and the train carriage is very loud.

Eames is keenly aware of how close Arthur presses to him, surrounded by so many people, and his heart seizes in his chest, his hand settling on the middle of Arthur’s back, just heavy enough that their bodies are pushed together, until their breaths are the same.

“I suppose you deserve the view,” Eames drawls, teasing, like they won’t be underground most of the way, as he nudges Arthur into the window seat.

Arthur’s look of gratitude is pained and reluctant, like he knows what Eames is up to.

He should, it’s not like Eames is trying to be subtle about it.

They take their seats, their bags in the racks, and the train departs precisely on time. They don’t speak a word until Ashford International is far behind them, and their hands have drifted close enough to rest half atop each other.

It’s Arthur who breaks the silence.

The train glides through the dark of the tunnel, the lights in the carriage glaring, and Arthur is tucked down in his seat, his head closer to Eames’ shoulder level, and he’s been fiddling with his pen for nearly ten minutes.

Eames’ nose is in a book, and while he probably looks invested, he actually has no idea what’s going on. He hasn’t retained a single word since they left St Pancras.

“Eames,” Arthur says, quietly, more quietly than he needs to.

“Yes?” Eames replies in the same hushed voice.

Arthur shuffles a little, turning towards Eames. His eyes are big and dark and tired.

“What is it?” Eames asks.

“I’m sorry you had to go back there.”

Eames blinks down at Arthur’s strained expression, and when he swallows, it’s hard. He tries to say something flippant, irreverent. It cracks in his throat, and what comes out is,

“I’m sorry I’m a narcissistic, egotistical maniac.”

Arthur’s dimples pull into his cheeks, like little kisses in his skin.

“It wasn’t a criticism,” he lies, and Eames chuffs a laugh.

“You have low standards,” he says, and he looks back at the book to find he’s read eighty-six pages of whatever-the-fuck.

Arthur’s forehead, warm on his shoulder, nose in his triceps.

“No, I don’t,” he murmurs.

Something is different. Eames can feel it, an itch in the notches of his spine. They are holding something very fragile in their hands, between them, and Eames has a terrible feeling he’s going to be the one that smashes it.

By the time Eames looks down again, Arthur’s asleep.

The dimples are still there.

|*|

**interlude | sneeuliuperd**

Contrary to popular belief, Samantha Chamberlain has, buried somewhere between her greed and her fury, a moral compass.

It’s never quite pointed true north, but it’s there, needle rocking in the pursuit of an acceptable direction. She ignores it, most of the time. Not spitefully, though. She rarely acts rashly.

So, when a man sits across the table from her, wearing a cheap suit and an expensive watch, telling her he’ll pay for the whereabouts of Mr Eames, she doesn’t refuse.

She doesn’t accept, either.

“How much?” she asks instead.

The man is hungry, she can see it in his eyes.

Political campaign aides and bottom-ladder-rung tabloid journalists; they all share that look. They know, in time, this shit will pay off.

“Depends on what you can offer,” he says.

Samantha flashes her teeth, tonguing at her soft palate.

“I gave you his apartment,” she points out coolly.

They paid handsomely for that. Too handsomely. She knew perfectly well he wasn’t in town and more to boot: he doesn’t even keep his PASIV there, wretched sod.

“We want him,” the man says testily. His lip curls in displeasure as she picks up her little cup of coffee and drains it, thick and gritty and strong.

“What makes you think I know where he is?” she asks.

The man glances around the café they’re setup in with zero subtlety, catches his backup sitting near the doorway. Samantha memorises the slope of the backup’s profile.

She’ll gut him first, probably.

“You knew where he lived,” the idiot suit replies. “And you killed for him.”

That makes her laugh, lost in the hubbub of crowd.

“I’d kill for you, if I thought it would benefit me.”

The man inclines his head.

“Would you kill Mr Eames for us?”

Samantha purses her lips, considering the offer.

Against all odds, she rather likes Blighty. He’s a bit soft, reputation be damned, and he’s got chips to spare on his shoulders.

Her life wouldn’t change much at all if he were six feet under.

“For ten million British pounds, perhaps,” she says, shrugging as she waves her empty coffee cup at a waiter.

“Don’t be absurd,” the man spits.

He’s agitated, now. He’s starting to clock that he might well be getting played for a fool.

“That’s my price for cutting off pretty heads,” she replies, drumming her fingers on the table. “It’s a shame he’s not uglier. I’d charge you less.”

“You’re in no position to make such demands.”

Samantha reins in her growl, leaning heavily into the table.

“I could cut your throat and drink your blood right now and do you know what would happen?”

The handle of her knife cuts into her grip, biting hard as her impatience.

“Nothing,” she answers her own question icily. “Not a damn thing. This city is full of my friends, it’s full of Eames’ friends, and if you think you’re still breathing out of anything other than my own clemency, you should think again.”

She can still remember meeting Blighty; still see his scalp bruised by her gun, the shadows under his eyes and the way he dropped to his knees with a fistful of diamonds in one hand and a broken penknife blade in the other.

She shot his partner point blank in the back of the head, and Blighty muttered, _Fucksake, he owed me twelve grand, you miserable cunt._

She took back all but two of the diamonds and that was the last time she put any real thought into killing him.

Now, the man across the table eyes her warily.

“I won’t kill Mr Eames for you,” she says, just as a waiter brings her coffee. She takes it straight from his hand and sinks it, scalding viscous down her throat. “You have twelve hours to leave Kenya. Inform Mr Djokovic he and his men are not welcome here.”

He clearly doesn’t know whether to believe her or not, his eyes dark and shrewd, a mole underground blinking mud. In a way, she really hopes he doesn’t.

Samantha Chamberlain stole the name Snow Leopard when she was twenty-two years old.

She’s never loved anything more than being underestimated by men.

|*|

**paris, france**

Paris swallows them up in a burst of glorious sunshine. Gard du Nord is loud and busy and they snake through the crowds easier here than they did in London.

Arthur’s visibly more comfortable, and Eames tries to follow suit, tries to imitate the smoothness of the French that falls out of his mouth, the squareness of his shoulders and grace of his footsteps.

He’s found them a place to stay, an easy walk from the station and Eames isn’t sure if that’s for his benefit or Arthur’s, but he appreciates it either way. It’s not as decadent as the Manchester hotel, but it’s infinitely more welcoming.

Eames watches Arthur sink into the sofa in the lounge like it’s where he was born to be.

Arthur watches him right back, and Eames can feel spores of something anxious and desperate taking root in his chest. Something has changed, he thinks, something very radical.

There’s nothing apologetic about the way Arthur stares at him, and Eames realises belatedly there’s nothing apologetic about the way _he’s_ staring at Arthur, either. He feels hot at the collar, and incredibly hungry although he doubts he could eat a bite of anything.

He swallows loudly, before casting around the homely living room and staying, “Wine?”

“In the refrigerator,” Arthur says, grinning, and Eames busies himself fetching a ridiculously nice chardonnay from the suspiciously well stocked fridge.

By the time he comes back, Arthur’s shoes are off, and he’s curled happier on the sofa with is laptop on his knees and his hair looking undeniably like he’s just run his fingers through it.

“Who lives here?” Eames asks, handing Arthur a glass and taking a large gulp from his own.

Arthur raises his eyebrows.

“A friend,” he replies most unhelpfully.

Eames grunts, slumping onto the cushions just shy of close to Arthur, where he can look at the laptop screen without effort.

“So, when do we meet the inimitable Ariadne?” Eames asks, aiming for unenthused but he thinks he comes up short.

Arthur opens an email that’s written in Portuguese, probably because he knows Eames won’t be able to read it.

“Soon,” he replies curtly, sipping his wine. “I told you Paris would be fine.”

“We’ve been here for ten seconds, darling,” Eames drawls. “Still plenty of time for Interpol to break down the door.”

“You have an incredibly high opinion of yourself,” Arthur says. “I suppose you think you’re on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, too?”

Eames shrugs one shoulder, mostly for show. It must look like something else entirely, though, because Arthur lets out a little sigh. He looks at Eames, candid and curious.

“Eames,” he says, like a brand new word. “You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, right?”

For reasons that are less than mysterious, it guts Eames deeply. He might have preferred it if Arthur punched him.

He looks at the dark scab on Arthur’s cheek. It’s healing nicely, the edges still neat and there’s no bruising left around it. Just a clean, red line.

“Maybe you should,” he says, and it’s not for show.

Because perhaps it’s worse, knowing Arthur let this happen. Let it happen because he knew, had _faith,_ deep-rooted as an oak, that Eames would come for him. Knew even before Eames did.

Eames drinks his wine and he looks at Arthur’s face, and for the millionth time that day he realises he’s accidentally looking at Arthur’s mouth, crooked in a smile.

“What would that achieve?” Arthur asks, and it’s more solemn than his expression implies.

He snaps his laptop shut, dropping it onto the floor underneath the coffee table.

“It might make you feel better,” Eames suggests, half-joking.

Arthur just rolls his eyes.

“No, it would make _you_ feel better, you masochist,” he snorts, dropping his wine glass on a coaster and leaning back against the cushions.

Eames isn’t sure, but he thinks Arthur might be right. He wants to say something, something meaningful, something deserving. It’s not the first time in the past few weeks he’s felt this urge, however once again his brain fails to supply him with something.

“Taking Djokovic down will make me feel better,” Arthur says. Says like he means it, too.

“Have you ever even worked with Ebba before?” Eames asks, too smugly, too quickly.

He almost curses as Arthur’s face transforms into a look of victorious glee.

“I _knew_ you were paying attention!” he nearly shouts, finger jabbing in Eames’ face. “God, you’re such an asshole. I _knew_ you knew what she was up to. Christ, you’re hard work, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” Eames replies. It’s not that he _likes_ being a total arse, he just, well. He likes it. “Answer the question.”

“Once,” Arthur replies. “We didn’t get along particularly well, but she’s good. _Really_ good. And she’s not a neglectful soccer mom, which is apparently a pre-requisite for you.”

“Piss off,” Eames says playfully, dropping his wine glass next to Arthur’s.

Arthur frowns, quickly moving Eames’ glass from the table to a coaster. Eames grins, and when Arthur realises, he gives him a weak punch on the arm.

“Asshole,” he says again.

That silent sensation swallows them up again, the one that Eames doesn’t know how to break. Arthur, smiling at him. Not grinning or smirking, or anything else. Just those dimples in that face, harmed and lovely, that Eames wants to touch and press and kiss.

Arthur doesn’t move, even when Eames moves. Moves away, first, tentatively, then closer. Just a little, just enough to quicken his heartbeat.

It’s nothing, really. They’re not even as close now as they were on the Eurostar, but for some reason Eames feels it, here. Cold from the wine and warm from the proximity, those furnace eyes on his.

England has never felt further, though he’s barely a few hundred miles away.

Arthur takes a small, obvious breath, licking his lips. Still, he doesn’t move.

Eames tries to break eye contact. Tries to wrench himself from that stare, gold as new honey.

“You don’t have to stay, you know.”

It burns, deep in his chest where there was maybe a soul, once. Eames frowns; can’t hide it, the way it hurts to hear Arthur say that.

“What?”

Arthur, just shy of rumpled, wearing a cashmere jumper and maroon socks and no tie. Sitting cat-cosy in an apartment that belongs to a _friend._ Looking so at ease with his own presence, even as he shows Eames the door.

“Just because _I_ want to go after him. You don’t, you know. You could leave.”

“Are you asking me to?”

Arthur rolls his eyes, like it’s a game, like he’s playing, and Eames throat is dry.

“I’m just saying you _could,_ Eames.”

It’s _not_ panic clawing up Eames’ throat. It’s _not._

“What are you saying?” he asks, and he hopes the tremble sounds something more like rage as he pulls back, pulls away. He feels hot embarrassment up the nape of his neck, to realise just how far apart their thoughts were, just now.

Somehow, he still wants to press his mouth over those dimples, while Arthur, he doesn’t even seem bothered whether Eames comes or goes.

Arthur, just shy of rumpled, with his dismissive irritation, a scowl of surprise on his face like he can’t even believe Eames right now.

He reaches out, reaches to Eames, maybe his hand or his wrist or, god forbid, his face.

Eames stands up, walks out to the kitchen and comes back with the chardonnay.

“Well that’s a healthy response,” Arthur laughs, and Eames tops up both their glasses, decidedly putting the bottle on the wood of the table with a _thunk,_ just to watch Arthur move it.

“I don’t have to stay, you know,” Eames sneers, and Arthur laughs.

“No, you don’t.”

“Then maybe I’ll go. It’s not like I wanted to be here anyway.”

Arthur’s eyes, those furnaces, those hot coals of amusement and disdain.

“You’re a real piece of work, Matthew Forrest,” he says with callous relish, and he means it.

He really, really means it.

|*|

Eames met Sasha Brown when he was sixteen years old.

She wore glitter eyeliner; taught him how to deepthroat and how to recork champagne.

He tried hard to love her back, and she forgave him for failing.

|*|

**paris, france**

Arthur hasn’t even gotten out of his seat. He’s still leaning against the cushions of the sofa, still got his legs tucked beneath him and his arm stretched lazy across the back cushions, all the better to survey Eames with his lordly wisdom.

“What do you want?” he asks with a laugh that sounds more like a plea. He shakes his head, pink spots blushing in his cheeks and an unfathomable curiosity in his eyes. “What are you so fucking afraid of?”

 _Everything,_ Eames wants to say, it chokes him. _I’m afraid of everything._

He doesn’t, because he knows he won’t be able to bear it when Arthur thinks he’s being sardonic, when he doesn’t realise Eames is telling the truth.

So instead, Eames shrugs apathetically, salt dry throat, and says,

“Maybe I’m just –”

“Don’t even think it,” Arthur snaps, like he knows what Eames wants to say. “I know you’re not,” he snaps, like he knows Eames at all.

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” Eames snaps back defensively.

Arthur splutters, leaning forward like a tipped glass of chardonnay.

“Really?” he cries. “If that’s true, it’s because you’ve refused to tell me. Because you wouldn’t dare trust someone else with an ounce of the truth. Jesus Christ, Eames, don’t _leave.”_

Eames is two steps from the door, his bag close enough to snatch up from the floor.

He turns back, and he wants the ground to swallow him up because he doesn’t _want_ to leave.

At the same time, the very idea of staying here a second longer is more agonising than he thinks he’s capable of bearing.

“Why not?” he retorts, even as a tiny, stupid little voice trips in the back of his throat, _shut up, shut up, shut up._ “You don’t need me here.”

Christ, he feels as petulant as a schoolboy. The idea of swallowing his words now is repugnant. He’s halfway made his bed by now and he’ll fucking lie in it half-done if he has to.

“You’re right,” Arthur says, untangling his curled limbs to get to his feet, and for a second, he sways like maybe he does.

He doesn’t though. He catches his weight and he remains on his own two feet and it’s wonderful, it’s what Eames _wanted,_ but it aches, too, in corners of Eames he didn’t know existed until this moment.

“I don’t,” Arthur continues, and his brow is creased with all his questions. “Is that so fucking awful, Eames? What do you want, for me to beg you to stay? You’re your own man, Eames. Take some fucking responsibility. If you stay, it’s because you want to.”

Eames swallows dryly, his tongue too big for his mouth. His teeth worry at his lower lip, cracks in concrete, and he takes a breath so deep he feels it in his gut.

“Arthur,” he says, and he’s never noticed how nice a name it is, how nice it must be to just belong to one name. “I don’t know –”

Arthur, kindly, mercilessly, saves him from having to complete that half-baked thought with a snarl of his own.

“That’s your entire problem, Eames,” he spits. “You don’t _know.”_

He casts about the living room, as if for support, but finds only wine and carpet and window. A bookcase half-empty and a mantelpiece of trinkets.

When he looks at Eames, it’s with that same face as from the Eurostar but it’s different now, less forgiving. Eyes big and dark and tired.

“You don’t _want_ to know. You don’t want to ask, and you don’t want to tell, and do you know what? That’s fine. Cowardly, but fine. So just fucking go, if you won’t admit your own feelings for the first time in your life.”

“Arthur,” Eames says, but his defence doesn’t come. He has no defence.

It feels like he’s tied to that chair in Zagreb all over again, helpless and restrained only it’s not for show this time. It’s not a con and his audience isn’t a mashed potato mark. It’s _Arthur._

Not _Cobb and Arthur,_ not the point man, not the snippy little narc wearing a three-piece. Just Arthur, looking like his disquiet nightmares and his lemon tea sanctuary. Looking like he wants Eames to offer him something, but Eames, he doesn’t have anything to offer.

He thinks, perhaps, that’s what he’s been subconsciously trying to tell Arthur for years.

Because Arthur, he’s not in love with Eames, and Eames, he’s definitely not in love with Arthur.

But he thinks, just maybe, he _could_ be, if he put some effort into it. More effort than he has to spare.

He licks his lips with a dry tongue, shifting his weight from side to side like a warmup.

Arthur’s arms cross over his chest expectantly, schoolteacher-worthy and Eames would roll his eyes if it wasn’t so effective.

“Before,” he says, hesitant in his every breath. And the words, they don’t present themselves for consideration, they just tumble out of his mouth unsolicited. “When you asked me before. About Kelvin.”

He’s not said his name in ten years. There’s been no need to. Buried in the sea of Eames’ memories where, unwelcome, they’ve gathered like a hurricane.

He can still see him, his dark red hair with his mother’s eyes and his father’s build. A pinched cigarette between his fingers, smelling of seaweed and mud.

“I didn’t,” he stop-starts, and Arthur cocks his head to the side, his calculator face. “It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

Arthur snorts, and Eames pretends he doesn’t wince as he continues,

“It’s just because – I don’t have the words.”

It’s true. God forgive him, it’s the truth.

He didn’t have the words when he was twenty-one years old and he doesn’t have the words now, even though he’s thirty-six and he should know better, he does know better.

Arthur doesn’t laugh this time, but he doesn’t drop his high shoulders either. His eyebrows tip sideways.

“Then try,” he says expectantly.

Eames glances at the window, the bold blue sky and the clouds and the rooftops.

“I – he –”

“You were together,” Arthur surmises, _wrong,_ so _wrong,_ he doesn’t know, doesn’t understand.

Why isn’t he as telepathic as he pretends to be?

“No, fucksake,” Eames snaps, bristling.

His bag is within reach. He could stoop down and grab it. He could walk out the door without it, although that would be a new level of self-destruction even for him.

Instead, he says something he thought he’d never say, something he couldn’t even say to Kelvin’s _mother,_ for Christ’s sake.

“I loved him.”

Arthur’s brow dips. He suits confusion, that puppyish look of softness and on any other day, Eames would tell him. Even now, a piece of him wants to reach over and smooth it out with his thumb.

“But he didn’t love you?” Arthur guesses and then, Eames just wants to punch him again.

“He didn’t – I never. If it could have –” Eames clenches his jaw and his fists follow. He stares at the carpet between them. It’s a really quite terrible shade of orange. He takes a steadying breath before, “It doesn’t matter, OK?”

It does, it really, really does. It’s followed Eames like a ghost across the continents, that answer.

“He died,” he finishes, and it still sounds lame, sounds too small for the magnitude of a death that changed the course of Eames’ life more singularly than any other event has before or since.

Death does that, sometimes. Steals more than one life with a single killing strike.

Arthur, however, still seems to think this is a game of twenty-questions.

“You blame yourself for his death?”

 _I wish,_ Eames wants to shout. Wants to bellow it to the world.

If it was so simple, so easy, maybe it would have been different. Maybe Eames would be different.

But it’s not.

“No,” he says, hard stone, diamond strong, then at Arthur’s disbelief, louder, “No! It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t even there.”

Arthur nods, then, and it’s not exactly pity, so Eames thinks perhaps he’ll accept it. He shifts his weight again, his ribs rattling together in the sack of his body.

Only, then Arthur opens his pretty, punchable mouth again.

“Hmm,” he says, like he’s surveying a particularly interesting mathematical equation. “I see.”

Eames nearly does, then. Nearly strikes him down right over that neatly sewn split in his face.

He looks so righteous, so compassionate, and it makes Eames prickle all over like poison ivy in a summer day.

“What?” he sneers, ice in his lungs like solid steel. “Don’t you – no.”

He shakes his head, his disdain carving lines into his mouth, teeth in his tongue.

“No,” he says, and he means it, means it with every fibre of his being. “Look, don’t act like you know me, _Arthur._ What, you think you can look at a few pictures, play a few games and poof!”

He springs his fingers before him like little puffs of smoke, like the stars dancing in his eyes as Arthur closes his own.

“You’ve got me all figured out?” he asks, full of contempt. “You haven’t got a goddamn clue –”

The sound Arthur makes isn’t a laugh. It belongs to hyenas and jackals.

His hands are in the air, grasping for strength, his eyes fly open and he takes a step forward, three back and one sideways like he doesn’t know what to do with his own unsteady weight.

“I’ve been inside your head, Eames!” he roars, a hand outstretched before him like a javelin aimed directly at Eames’ forehead. “I do know you. I _know_ you.”

Arthur, more than rumpled, his eyes blazing and his voice corded with the ropes of his revenge, and something harder, something less easily interpreted.

He shakes his head, too, but it isn’t in disbelief. It’s in certainty, a certainty Eames isn’t sure he recognises.

Then he continues,

“And it’s not because I know you were a police informant when you were a teenager, or that your birthday is on Christmas, or how you got kicked out of the Marines for sucking your Captain’s dick.”

The vitriol with which he says it, as if all three components make up the very worst parts of Eames’ existence, slices deeper than he means them to, deeper than he could possibly know. Eames wants to throw it back in his face, but he can’t bring himself to.

Only, his mouth softens around his next words, candyfloss mouth.

“I know none of your projections speak English, but they all have your eyes. I know you make everyone think your subconscious is an art gallery, but really it’s a prison.”

Eames feels his face change, though his own expression is a mystery to him.

He didn’t think a single soul knew that.

 _Are you in love with me?_   he asked and Christ, of course Arthur isn’t. Not if he knows that, not if he knows –

“Not only that,” Arthur continues, words scrunched like used staples in his spitting mouth. “It’s the prison your father got locked up in on _your_ information, you fucking masochist.”

 _Well it’s not like I chose it,_ Eames wants to snarl back, but that’s not entirely true, is it?

Some part of him has chosen it, even if the rest disagrees. Disagrees so violently, he dresses it up in mirages, much like he does himself.

And Arthur, that cashmere jumper and those stupid maroon socks. Standing there with his trembling hands and his hangdog expression and his utter contempt for how close Eames steps to the door.

He says, as he steps towards Eames as he might across a sheet of glass shards,

“I know you forge people better than anyone I’ve ever met, and you think it’s because you hate yourself but it’s just because you’re fucking good at it. That you have something you can’t explain so you assume it’s bad.

“I know that when we met you told me I was a stupid kid, that you told me to go home before I got in deep shit, but you saved my life anyway.”

He still is a stupid kid. He’s always been a stupid kid.

It’s Eames’ least and most favourite thing about him. The boy in the suits, whose guns are the only things fancier than his ties.

Eames’ foot is at his bag. He could reach down right now and pick it up. He thinks Arthur would either not say a word or shoot him between the eyes.

And seeing as how he doesn’t have a gun, Eames thinks his odds are pretty good.

He opens his mouth to say as much, but Arthur, who is apparently feeling much chattier than he has done in his whole entire to life to date, isn’t finished.

“And you say you don’t know why you came for me in Croatia, but I don’t believe you,” he says, like the child he is. “I call bullshit. You did it because you are not the same as the villains you surround yourself with, you’re not the goddamn Snow Leopard.”

Despite the cold wash of sweat making itself known down Eames’ back, he almost laughs. He can still see Rowan’s face, morose with intrigue, _I thought it was you._

Of course, Arthur wouldn’t think so, but then, Arthur thinks he knows everything.

He doesn’t.

Eames grits his teeth and Arthur stands close enough to slap, close enough to devour. He can taste Arthur’s anger like his own.

“You wouldn’t know how to be that, and I don’t care if you think that’s naïve, I think it’s true.”

Hands teapot handles on his hips, and his schoolboy charmless ego. He concludes, like the prissy little prefect he probably was,

“I think you’ve been punishing yourself for years.”

He looks at Eames, at his mouth and his eyes, at his bobbing throat and Eames looks back.

“Matthew,” he says, and it’s the first time that he doesn’t wield those two syllables like weapons; the first time they sound gentle on his lips. “Aren’t you done yet?”

Eames bites the very tip of his tongue. There’s a tremor running through him that must be visible, it must, because it’s shaking him apart with vigour, it’s hurting. Arthur’s stare is hurting, he has no idea what he’s really asking.

And Eames, he could explain it. He could reach out a hand right now, stroke his fingertips down that face and maybe, just maybe, Arthur would listen.

But he doesn’t.

No, Eames doesn’t do that. Instead, he takes a thin, reedy breath.

“Apparently not,” he replies, and it sounds weak even in his own mouth, but it cuts Arthur just the way it’s supposed to. His calculator face askew, confused. “Have I disappointed you?” he asks, cold slice of indifference.

Arthur’s hands by his sides, loose, soft as his jumper.

“I don’t have any expectations of you, Eames. You can’t disappoint me.”

Eames nods, ever so slight. Looks down at their feet, only a few inches apart. The carpet’s still a horrible orange colour.

He reaches down, grabs his bag and when he stands back up, there’s a look in Arthur’s face like he wants to say something else entirely.

“Then I guess I’ll go,” Eames says, truth or dare in the line of his mouth.

And in Arthur’s, too, but what he says instead is,

“Good luck.”

Eames thinks, if Arthur asked, right now, he’d probably stay.

But Arthur won’t, and neither will Eames. Because Arthur’s not in love with Eames and Eames isn’t in love with Arthur, even if, just maybe, he could have been.

Eames turns to the door, is almost out and when he looks back over his shoulder, Arthur hasn’t moved. He’s still there, ever so close, waiting, watching. There’s no expression on his face, or maybe too many to decipher.

Eames feels it in his chest, that hollowing bloom of nucleic envy and rage.

He offers a tight, unbidden smile, one that clenches in his cheeks, and before he parts, he says, lullaby soft,

“And just for the record, I didn’t get kicked out of the Marines because I sucked my Captain’s dick. I got kicked out when I refused to.”

He doesn’t wait for a response.

He just shuts the door quietly behind himself, walks down the corridor and out into the blistering sunshine, all the way to the train station.

|*|

**cadenza | three**

It was March, an unexpected flurry of snow that killed all the bluebells and scared away the bees. The sun hid behind thickets and the roads were empty and full.

It was March, and the job took a wrong turn.

Eames was under, wearing the face of a pretty little twink, the likes of which he worked so hard not to be as a teenager. He was picking his way through the crowd, shoulders hunched and feet dragging on the floor when something caught his eye.

Near the closest exit, the ineffable, unflappable Dominick Cobb doubled over, dropping harshly to his knees.

Worry rippled through the crowd of projections.

Eames, seeing Cobb’s contorted expression, made for the third exit, was barely out of sight of the mark when he withdrew his gun, pressed it bruising to his soft palate and pulled the trigger.

Ready, waiting, he kept his eyes closed when he woke.

A blur of words tipped through the pounding of his heart and Eames listened to Arthur’s misshapen voice.

Then the response, ever so quiet.

Eames knew that voice.

Carefully, he opened his eyes just enough to peer through his lashes.

Thaddeus Knave was standing close to the window, half turned away from the dreamers. Arthur stood very still, his hands steady by his sides.

For a moment, Eames wondered what the hell Arthur was waiting for. Then Knave turned slightly, and he saw the gun trained easily on Arthur’s chest. Even a poor shot like Tad Knave would struggle to miss at such close range.

“…wouldn’t catch on? I _know_ what you’ll do, what you always do,” Knave was hissing, spluttering rambles like a cut snake.

At his gesturing, Arthur moved to the side, further away from the PASIV and, by no small miracle, enough for Knave to turn his back entirely on the dreamers lying across the spacious living room.

Eames moved his head a touch, enough to be a sleeping turn. Neither of the men seemed to notice.

Arthur was doing a piss poor job of talking down the increasingly hysterical Knave. It was probably something to do with his eternally condescending tone. Lord knew it was enough to rile up Eames even on his best days.

Gently, Eames shifted over, just enough to ground himself in his seat, feet ready to land heavy.

“You won’t get out of here alive if this job goes south,” Arthur said, like the idiot he was.

“You can’t!” Knave shouted, trembling all over, toddler tantrum fear.

Then, several things happened at once.

The door to the bedroom burst open in a spray of loud voices; Knave turned to shoot at their intruder, screaming his fury.

Arthur reached back for his own gun, and in his confusion, Knave swung back around, his first target down and the barrel repositioned to Arthur’s vulnerable chest.

Eames launched himself across the room, his knees buckling even as he collided with Arthur.

A gunshot cracked in the air. Arthur yelled, his own handgun out, shooting even as he toppled under Eames’ unexpected weight and Eames howled at the white-hot pain that shredded through his bicep.

He could feel hot blood pouring down his arm, Arthur’s gun was loud in his ear, and he heard Knave go down but couldn’t see it, could just see blossoming specks of red in Arthur’s crisp white shirt.

“Eames,” Arthur said, breathless, pushing Eames up from below, his hands remarkably strong. “Eames, we need to get out – I need to wake Cobb and Hallie.”

Eames tucked his injured arm to his chest, wobbling his way to his feet, and stared stupidly around the room, his heartbeat loud in his ears.

“Eames?”

Arthur’s voice, fuzzy through water.

“Your shirt,” Eames replied with a frown.

Arthur glanced down to see Eames’ blood flowering crimson across his shirt. He turned away without comment, back to Cobb.

But for one curious moment, it looked a lot like Arthur was grinning.

|*|

**interlude | ariadne**

Ariadne Renfrew isn’t entirely sure what exactly she expected to turn up at her doorstep following the abrupt contact from Arthur, but it certainly wasn’t the cut-up mess now sitting opposite her at her local café.

Arthur’s hair is tidied back off his face and his sweater matches his shirt nicely, but that’s about as far as his impersonation of himself goes.

He’s lost what little fat clung to his cheeks and he has a deep maroon scar carved into a half-moon underneath his eye. There’s a soft quietness about him that’s very different to the sharp silence she’s used to.

It’s been a day and a half since he showed his face, and the bare bones of their plan are in place. Now all they can do is wait on a response from Ebba, to find out how soon they can hit Emil Djokovic below the belt.

Which means there’s nothing to do other than to fatten Arthur up a bit with some extravagant meals, leading them here, to a meal of four courses and a carafe of wine each down the street from Ariadne’s apartment.

Arthur’s not quite relaxed, but he’s leaning back in his chair and his hands are loosely clasped on the table around his wine glass. He’s contemplating something deeply, and Ariadne is doing her very best not to ask what’s bringing about that scowl.

She’s doing her best not to look at the scar on his face, too.

Ariadne sips her wine, playing with the last of the sauce on her empty plate and eyeing him through her eyelashes, when finally, Arthur speaks.

“What do you think of Eames?”

It’s among the least surprising questions he could have come up with, though she doesn’t mention this. Arthur probably wouldn’t appreciate being accused of being predictable.

So instead of lightly teasing her friend, Ariadne finds herself considering _Eames._

Honestly, she’s a bit confused as to why Eames isn’t here with them. She gathers they’ve argued, which isn’t new. She gathers it’s left Arthur reeling, which certainly _is_ new.

She’s not sure whether she wants to scold Eames or congratulate him.

Ariadne considers Eames; considers what Arthur wants her to say, what she wants to say, and tosses an answer somewhere in between.

“I think he’s charming and mean and ninety percent bullshit.”

This is not a lie. Her first impression of Eames, breathless with the delight of dreams, had left her full of rose-blush awe. Her second impression had been of slight scorn, at his waspishness and his biting displeasure at everything.

Arthur’s brow crumples a little at her answer, and before she can stop herself Ariadne continues, tongue tipped close to her wine glass,

“I always thought you’d be kind of good together.”

This is not a lie either, and Arthur’s frown darkens.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Ariadne sniggers, shrugging.

“Whatever you want.”

Arthur crosses his arms over his chest.

“I never really thought about it,” he says, and it’s _got_ to be a lie, one that Ariadne is desperate to call him out on.

She smirks, and Arthur must read something unintentional in it because he gets that flustered, _Eames_ look about him as he adds,

“You know. I mean, we fucked once, sure. Years ago. And it was good.”

It would be inappropriate on so many levels for Ariadne to detail exactly how hot she is sure it was, and so refrains from saying as much. She opts instead to raise her eyebrows.

This, if anything, is apparently worse than the pure pornography that first came to mind.

“What?” Arthur scoffs, sounding discomfited and defensive. His shoulders are more hunched now as he says, “It was great. Did it change my life? No. I defy anyone to have the best sex of their life with a new partner for the first time. It doesn’t work like that.”

 _That_ makes Ariadne grin. He’s right, of course, but she doesn’t want to admit that. It’s too easy to tilt her head in a puppyish look of disbelief and point out,

“You’re doing an awful lot of justifying for a decent one-night-stand you had years ago.”

Arthur opens his mouth, only to slam it shut again. He looks bashful at her teasing, and something else.

He’s not upset, per say, but she thinks it’s all too possible that whatever terms Arthur and Eames parted on, they were worse than she first thought.

The thing is, she _has_ always thought they’d be good together, and not just in a _would you record it for me_ kind of way. They work well together, they know each other; it’s clear as the Parisian sky above them right now.

She’s seen them work together, she’s seen them work separately and she knows categorically they’re always at their best in each other’s presence. She almost said as much to Cobb, once, but thought better of it.

The young waitress returns to collect their plates, and Arthur looks grateful for the interruption. His face relaxes, and his arms loosen, and Ariadne shamelessly takes full advantage to lean into the table and ask, before the waitress has even fully left their vicinity,

“Do you love him?”

Arthur turns scarlet.

It’s a visible combination of humiliation and fury, his lips are thinly pressed together and when he bares his teeth, he resembles a downtrodden jack russell.

 _“Please,”_ he says coldly, at odds with the rising flush of his throat and cheeks.

With an appeasing nod, Ariadne cocks her head, her accusation softening.

“Could you?” she asks instead.

This is more reasonable, and to her astonishment, Arthur seems to think so too. He brushes imaginary crumbs from his sweater and rests his forehead on his outstretched hand as he looks at her with serious consideration.

Then he smiles, a rueful quirk of his mouth.

“He is _so_ damaged,” he says, like that has anything to do with it, like that’s ever had a bearing on his ability to care for someone before, which is simply untrue. Ariadne’s seen it. “Worse than me,” he adds.

She’s never particularly thought of Arthur as damaged, before. There’s someone else, however, whom she thinks he deserves to be reminded of.

“Worse than Cobb?”

She’d watched with her own two eyes as Arthur patched together the pieces of Dominick Cobb that were bursting apart at the seams on the Fischer Job. She’d watched him swallow lies and take hits that he did not deserve, taking every punishment that came with simply being near Cobb at his worst.

“That’s not the same,” Arthur snaps. He’s still blushing, and the defensiveness is back. “That’s not fair, don’t do that.”

“Why not?” she asks innocently.

Her wine glass is empty again, and so is Arthur’s.

“I knew Cobb long before –” Arthur starts, then fails to continue and can say only, “Before.”

Ariadne snorts, and Arthur overrides her retort with another of his own.

“Eames has _always_ been – I’m not – don’t make me sound like an asshole.”

Ariadne’s not doing anything. If Arthur feels like an asshole, it’s because he thinks he’s being one.

It’s a development of his generally smug disposition that quite frankly, Ariadne hadn’t thought him capable of. Then he says, belligerent as the day she met him,

“I’m not going to go on a quest to fix him. I’m not doing that. I’m not chasing after him.”

“I’m not suggesting you do,” Ariadne shrugs with a smile.

“Thank you,” Arthur replies, snippy and precious, and he picks up his wine glass only to look forlorn at its sorry state of emptiness.

Generously, Ariadne picks up her own carafe and empties the last splash of her pinot noir into Arthur’s glass.

As she watches him sip it gratefully, his eyes shifty and his shoulders tight, she sees perhaps something of what he was as a boy. His nervousness and his energy, all coolly contained in that point man suit of his nowadays, glimpsed only in these tiny moments of insecurity.

She wonders, with futile glee, what exactly Eames sees, when he looks at Arthur. If he sees this nervous boy more than Ariadne’s ever realised.

“But what if he chases after you?” she asks.

Arthur scoffs, a puff of air through his nose and into his wine glass. His eyes crease with something akin to sadness.

“He won’t.”

“What if he does?” Ariadne insists. She can picture it perfectly – picture it _cleanly,_ more to the point, which frankly she’s pretty sure is medal-worthy.

Arthur catches her eye, and when he can’t look away, he accidentally reveals something she’s never much noticed in him before.

Hope. A cautious kind of hope.

Whatever he says, or does, he _wants_ Eames to chase him.

Ariadne grins.

“I thought so,” she says, preening righteously and helping herself to the last olive in the bowl between them.

She fiddles with the stone over her tongue, scraping her teeth over it to unpick the cling of its green flesh, and she drops it between her finger and thumb back into the now empty bowl.

When she looks back at him, Arthur’s looking forlorn again.

Christ, _dreamsharers._ They’re worse than teenagers.

“What’s wrong?” she sighs.

“Nothing.”

It’s odd, how atrocious a liar Arthur is.

“You don’t think he feels the same?” she guesses, which would be fair enough, she supposes.

Eames has always played his cards close to his chest, as far as Ariadne could tell.

Arthur doesn’t nod, nor does he shake his head. His left pinky is pulling at the corner of the scar under his eye as he sighs deeply.

“I think if he does, we just spent years wasting a hell of a lot of time.”

Ariadne remembers breaking up with her first real boyfriend. Three and a half years they’d been together, and she’d really loved him. Had thought, for a time, they’d be one of those teenage sweetheart stories, and love each other forever.

More importantly, she remembers bemoaning amidst the tissues to her mother how she’d wasted those years loving someone who it turned out didn’t deserve it.

 _There’s no wasting love, darling,_ her mother told her, stroking her hair and kissing her head, and she was right.

“That’s stupid,” she tells Arthur, now, with less patience than her mother had shown her.

Then again, she doubts Arthur would appreciate a kiss on the forehead.

He quirks a half smile, a little wistful, and she remembers, abruptly, his original question.

“What about you?”

“What?”

He tilts his head in such an exact imitation of herself, it has to be purposeful. She laughs across the table.

“What do you think of Eames?”

Arthur scrunches his nose a little, in a joke-serious-joke look of wonder, and replies,

“I think he’s charming and mean and ten percent bullshit.”

That makes Ariadne smile. She wants more than anything for Eames to show up at the table, right now, so she can bang their heads together and then officiate their wedding.

He doesn’t, of course.

The waitress brings them a dessert menu and Ariadne orders them both chocolate mousse, daring Arthur to refuse with a stony look.

He’s still fiddling with the scar, playing at its neat edges like he might smudge it off his skin, and Ariadne feels a pang of hatred for whoever gave him such a lasting memento.

“Are you sure you don’t want to kill Djokovic?” she asks, a little pleading, as if Arthur’s ever changed his mind about anything before in his life.

Arthur gives her a lemon look.

“He sells thirteen-year-old girls to sex rings at the Romanian border. I want his whole operation shut down, not just him.”

She can’t argue with that. If there’s one thing working for Ebba has taught her, other than a surprising addiction to the thrill of dream-vigilante justice, it’s that death is rarely the worst punishment that can be exacted; that villains are hydratic serpents, sprouting new heads at every cut of the knife.

Still, her anger lingers in her gut, as she pretends not to notice the slight shake in Arthur’s hand, and they wait for their mousse in companionable silence.

Once their spoons are laden and the waitress is bringing them espressos to go with their desserts, Ariadne says in a more light-hearted tone,

“Can I call you Scarface now?”

“Not if you want me to answer you.”

She snorts into her pudding, and Arthur’s mouth twitches in a grin.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she admits, like it was a secret otherwise.

Arthur’s grin widens.

“Me too,” he replies, and Ariadne feels his honesty like a balm. “Sorry you cancelled your vacation.”

Ariadne rolls her eyes, waving away his apology with her spoon.

“Please. The Maldives will still be there when we’re done.”

Honestly, she’d like to be able to convince Arthur to come with her. He could probably use a vacation, after all this, and with Cobb still chomping at the bit he’ll probably want to disappear to a remote island soon.

Then again, maybe she should leave the whisking away to far lands to Eames, whenever he pulls his head out of his ass and comes after Arthur.

Which he _will._ She’s sure of it.

She looks at Arthur, his tired face and his scarred cheek, at how small he looks in his seat when not surrounded by that air of self-importance he carries like a hydrogen cloud.

“If he shows up,” Ariadne says, quietly, staring at Arthur though he doesn’t look up at her. “Promise me you’ll listen to what he has to say?”

Arthur pauses, looking deep into his chocolate mousse like it holds the key to his salvation.

Then he licks his lips, eats another spoonful and says deliberately,

“I promise to think about it.”

Ariadne grins, promptly thanking the waitress as she arrives with their coffees.

She’ll take that bet.

|*|

Eames died in a dream and woke up concussed when he was thirty years old.

Would’ve slept it off fine in a hotel if not for their client’s treachery.

Would’ve been killed in his sleep if Arthur hadn’t come back for him.

|*|

**mombasa, kenya**

He regrets it. Of course he does.

He regretted it before he got to the pavement of the street.

The thing is, there’d have been nothing to gain from going back up the stairs. Running back with his tail tucked between his legs. For what? Further accusations and long, withering looks from a supercilious point man?

No thank you. He’ll take his self-imposed exile with a smile if it means not looking into those disappointed, cow brown eyes again.

There are three poker joints in all of Mombasa that still let Eames through their doors.

When he walks in, Sayid gives him a nod from his seat beside his wife, who is clobbering the waiter over ice cubes.

It’s loud, the air damp with sweat.

Eames heads straight for the bar, for the tattoo coiled around a string-bean neck. He drags himself onto the stool next to her, and even from the corner of his eye, he can see the way her mouth opens in surprise.

She recovers well, a demon jackal laugh, and she orders another rum and coke with a side order of whisky, which she nudges at him, snickering into her glass.

She’s got a real shiner that’s taken up all of her right eye, and a red nick that looks like a ring mark in her cheek.

“Welcome home, Blighty,” the Snow Leopard says, full of such dire insincerity it makes Eames cough a laugh as they clink glasses.

They drink in silence, swamped by the chasm of sound around them. Full moon soon, probably. The hounds are lively.

Eames looks at his companion, the sharp boned side of her face and he asks without preface,

“Did you kill Chloe Sheldon?”

Her face splits into a radiant grin.

She’s still pretty when she smiles, even when she’s acting ugly.

“Yes,” she says, and when she licks the rum from her lips it leaves them glossy wet. “Yes, I did.”

Eames can remember what it was like to admire her resilient scorn for everything around her.

Only, Eames can still picture, more clearly than any memory of the Snow Leopard, more clearly than her face right here and now, Arthur, looking at him with anguish, and that was radiant, too.

“They offered me a decent price for your head,” the Snow Leopard says. Her eyes are blue and bloodshot.

“I’m sure they did,” Eames nods, sipping his whisky, enjoying the smouldering burn down his throat.

“How’s your Arthur?” she asks.

Her knee nudges teasingly against Eames’ under the bar. He leans away, just out of reach.

“Not today, Little Leopard,” he says, and it feels like they should be holding aces up their sleeves.

She nods, indifferent. She has bedfellows to spare, and it’s not like Eames is the only person to play poker with in this measly corner of the world.

“Kenya is safe, you know,” she says, like Eames would be here if it wasn’t.

Eames likes to think he wouldn’t have needed her to vouch for him, but he’s not too proud to admit it helps, having a psychopath in his corner.

He should get that one written on a card for Arthur, he thinks, only a little resentfully.

“How much would you pay for it, then?” he asks, with his eyes on the licks of his whisky sliding in the glass.

Sam’s eyes widen, round as her open mouth and even Eames winces at the way the bruises stretch.

“Are you shitting me?” she asks, positively bubbling with excitement.

It’s Eames’ turn to grin, then, just shy of icy.

“Yes, of course I am,” he snorts. “Like fuck am I going to sell you my PASIV, you conniving cunt. You gave them my flat.”

The punch to his arm is incredibly hard, but probably a little justified. His laugh tickles the back of his throat as he drains his glass and swirls a hand in the air for another round.

Sam’s grumbling, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, still smirking.

“You were rude,” she says, snooty nose high in the air and she sinks her drink just in time for its replacement to reach her.

“You’re a murderer,” he points out, not unkindly.

And Sam, her toothy Snow Leopard grin, a glint of metal in her mouth.

“So are you,” she says.

Eames shrugs, because it’s true. He shrugs, because, really, he thinks maybe Arthur was right. He’s not the same as her, and he doesn’t think he ever wanted to be.

He tried, tried for years and it’s exhausting. Eames is starting to think, maybe, he’s been exhausted for a long time.

“Goodbye, Sammy,” he says.

He leaves the second whisky next to her rum and coke. He slides some cash across the bar, then takes a larger wad of money, carries it over to Sayid, and drops it on top of the chips on the table in front of him.

Sayid stares up at him suspiciously, looking for all the world like he’s displeased to be handed large sums of money on a whim.

“I believe that covers my tab,” Eames says, and Sayid gives him a slow nod without looking. There’s probably too much, but the truth is, he’ll probably just spend it on his wife anyway, and at the very least, Eames does really like Maja.

He’s almost at the door when Sam says, just loud enough to be heard over the din,

“You always were fucking soft.”

He thinks he can hear her grin amidst the long, accusing vowels, but he can’t be sure. He doesn’t look to check.

The sun is blinking in a long cerulean streak, today. The streets smell of nutmeg and pepper.

He doubts this will be the last he sees of this corner of the city, or even this poker joint, or Sam.

But it will be different. He, hopefully, will be different.

He walks the long route to Yusuf’s shop, through the crooked snickets that wind labyrinthine into snake-skin streets.

When he gets there, he will be greeted with a great deal of shouting, followed by a glass of whisky or three. They will toast each other’s wealth, and then their health, and then they will decide what is to be done about Eames’ severe lack of property in Kenya.

The next two months will be arduous, and at least a quarter of that time will be spent drunk.

Then, he will fly to Berlin, to the flat Arthur for some reason _still_ refuses to give up despite having been tracked there already by at least two assassins, by Eames’ count.

He will break into Arthur’s flat while it’s raining, sit on his bed, and wait for him to come home.

He won’t wait long.

|*|

Eames met Kelvin Taylor when he was seventeen years old.

 _You’re a Marine,_ Eames said, to which the young man nodded, grinning around his cigarette.

 _Why,_ he asked, his eyes glinting in the sunlight, _are you thinking of signing up?_

|*|

**(ARTHUR AND) | ravens that are kind**

|*|

**cadenza | seven**

It will be July, hidden crickets cackling and the sun kissed roads ablaze. A heat wave and an orange juice shortage and standing in front of the open freezer at three in the morning, when sleep is elusive in the simmering night.

There will be a job, easy enough despite the lacking air con. It will go according to plan and Eames will play tig with the rest of the team behind the extractor’s back on the second level, because everything’s finished and there’s nothing to do but wait out the kick.

There will be a short debrief, which will mostly revolve around the inappropriateness of playing childish games inside a mark’s head; Eames will smirk, because at least he _won_ the childish game, and Ariadne will kick his shin hard with the heel of her boot, stifling a laugh.

He will go to the airport with the others, and they will part ways, and he will pretend to be getting the delayed flight out to Johannesburg.

Once he is alone with his carry-on and a royal blue tie gift-wrapped in his pocket, he’ll turn around and leave again, out to the blistering sunshine and the smell of dry grass. He’ll get a bus into the town centre, to the café on the corner that serves its coffee in charming little mismatched teacups.

Arthur will already be there, at their usual table, with two coffees, an iced tea and a mint lemonade.

He’ll be wearing soft linen, with sunglasses on his head over his slicked back hair. He’ll be freckled, with pink high in his cheeks and the only tension in his body will be the way he leans towards Eames with an unconscious, gravitational energy.

 “I ordered you the chicken,” he’ll say, and Eames will kiss him, muttering _Thanks_ against his lips, a promise and a prayer.

They’ll trade sips of lemonade and tea, and after they’ve eaten they’ll get through a bottle of wine that’s more expensive than both their meals combined.

It will be July, and they will be kind to each other because there will be no reason to be cruel.

Arthur’s hands will be dry and warm, not too tight around Eames’ wrist as he laughs.

Eames will bend his hand around his cheek like a balm; his thumb, slow sorrow, along the purple red smear of scar tissue hooked under his eye. Arthur will turn inwards, kiss his palm.

“Ready to go?” Arthur will ask, waving three fingers at a passing waiter and fishing for his wallet.

Eames will nod, silent graves under his tongue.

“Arthur,” he’ll say, like it’s a word he just invented.

“Eames,” Arthur will reply, like it’s an answer to a question.

It might be.

|*|

Eames falls in love for the last time when he is thirty-seven years old.

The day before New Year’s Eve, snow stung eyelashes and useless fingerless gloves.

 _I love you too,_ he says.

And Arthur’s eyes alight, alive; like all the stars aligned.

|*|


End file.
